





LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf.... 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 







.- 




REV. MOTHER ST. JOHN EONTBONNE 



FOUNDRESS OF THE SISTERS OF ST JOSEPH OF LYONS. 

i . ci| V LE !7 1 yBenziger Brothers. 



LIFE OF 



Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne, 

OF 

THE CONGREGATION OF THE SISTERS OF ST. JOSEPH 



IN LYONS. 



®rarcslatt& from tfje tfxtntb 

OF 

THE ABBE R I V A U X, 

H 

Honorary Canon, Author of " Cour$ oVHistoire Ecclesiastique." 



v*~ 



Look, and make it according to the pattern that was shewed thee in tha 
mount.— ExoD. xxv, 40. 

Who shall find a valiant woman ? the price of her is as of things brought 
from afar off and from the uttermost coasts— Prov. xxxi, 10. 




New York, Cincinnati, and St. Louis : 
BENZIQER 3ROTHKRS, 

Printers to the Holy Apostolic See. 
1887. 



^ to Library 



OP 



WASHINGTON 



3X4705- 



Copyright, 1887, by Benziger Brothers. 






2. - 3^.03/ 



^ppfobatiott. 



His Eminence Cardinal Caverot, Archbishop of 
Lyons, having cordially recommended the Life of Rev. 
Mother St. John, the Foundress and first Superioress of 
the Sisters of St. Joseph of Lyons, we hereby give our 
Imprimatur and recommendation to the translation of 
the same work, assured that whilst it will prove of special 
interest to the spiritual daughters of this saintly Mother, 
it will be found also a source of edification to the mem- 
bers of all religious Communities and to the devout laity. 

The world is ruled not by ideas but by ideals, and pious 
biography, — the Gospel and counsels of perfection real- 
ized in actual life — is a most powerful motive to i( go and 
do likewise." 

»£« PATRICK JOHX. 
Archbishop of Philadelphia. 
Given at Philadelphia, 

Feast of St. Agnes, Jan. 21, 1887. 



CONTENTS. 



Preface to the American Edition. . . . .11 

Dedicntion, . . . . . . .15 

Introduction, . . . . . . .19 



— BO OKI.— 

Origin of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph. — Mother 
St. John before and after the Revolution of 1789. 

CHAPTER I. 

Origin of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph. — Its 
Founders. — End and mission of the Institute. — Rev. 
Father Mgdaille's instructions to the first Sisters. — Ap- 
probation of the Congregation. — Its development. — The 
Community at Monistrol. — Designs of Providence in regard 
to its Superior, Mother St. John, . . .45 

CHAMER II. 

Childhood and education of Jeanne Fontbonne. — Sanctity of 
her family. — She and her sister Marguerite are placed at 
the boarding-school of the Sisters of St. Joseph at Le 
Puy, . . . . ... .65 



6 Contents. 

CHAPTER III. 

Margaret and Jeanne return to their family. — Their attraction 
to the religious life. — Ceremony at the Convent ; Bishop 
de Gallard predicts that Jeanne is to be " the light and 
glory of the Congregation of St. Joseph." — The sisters 
enter the Novitiate at Monistrol. — Their reception to the 
Habit. — Sister St. John's devotedness. — She is appointed 
Superior, . . . . . . .71 



CHAPTER IV. 

Mother St. John as Superior at Monistrol. — Works undertaken 
by her. — Breaking out of the Revolution. — Mgr. de 
Gallard refuses to take the oath, and is forced into exile. 
— Apostasy of the Cure* of Monistrol ; his persecution of 
the Sisters. — First attack on the Convent. — Dispersion of 
the Sisters. — Second attack ; Mother St. John and the 
remaining Sisters take refuge in her father's house, . 81 



CHAPTER V. 

Mother St. John and her Sisters are imprisoned. — They meet 
Mother St. Francis of Bas. — Sentenced to death, they 
await the hour of execution as the hour of triumph. — They 
are saved by the fall of Robespierre. — Mother St. John 
returns to her family, . . . . .91 



Contents. 



CHAPTER VI 



Mother St. John's retirement. — Her holy works. — Mgr. de 
Gallard, from the place of his exile, writes to his dis- 
persed daughters, the Sisters of St. Joseph, . .102 



— BOOK II.— 

Mother St. John after the Revolution. — Foundation, Unification, 
and Organization of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Lyons. 

CHAPTER I. 

The time designed by Providence for the restoration of the 
Congregation of St. Joseph arrives. — Mother St. John 
is called to Saint-Etienne.— Community of the Rue de la 
Bourse. — The Sisters resume the religious habit, . 109 

CHAPTER II. 

Mother St. John re-opens the Asylum at Monistrol. — She re- 
stores the Convent of St. Joseph, and appoints Mother 
St. Louis Superior. — The Government approves the Com- 
munity of the Rue de la Bourse. — Opening of a house in 
Lyons. — The Community of Mi-Cargme at Saint-Etienne. 117 

CHAPTER III. 

Establishment of a Mother-House at Lyons. — Mother St. John 
appointed Superior-General. — Her trials and difficulties. 126 



Contents. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Mother St. John's love and consideration for her daughters. 
— Her amiability with externs. —Arrangements in favor 
of the sick and poor.— The Sisters take charge of the 
Lyceum. — Epidemic at the Mother-House. — A House of 
Retreat for the sick and superannuated religious is opened 
at Vernaison. — Her love follows her children even be- 
yond the tomb. ...... 140 



CHAPTER V. 

Construction of a Chapel at the Mother-House. — Blessing of 
God in temporal matters. — Mother St. John's reliance on 
Providence. — She visits Le Puy. — Constitution and gen- 
eral government of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. 
Joseph. ...... . 152 



— B O OK III.— 

Mother St. Joint's administration and direction. — Wonderful in- 
crease of the Congregation of Lyons. — Its numerous and glorious 
spiritual offspring. 

CHAPTER I. 

Mother St. John's labors for the consolidation of the work . — 
Her love of regularity ; her wise disposition of subjects. — 
Admirable extension of the Congregation. — Important 
services rendered to the Church bv the Sisters. . . 160 



Contents. 



CHAPTER II. 



Other foundations from Lyons. — Mother St. Joseph, Foun- 
dress of the Congregation of St. Joseph in Belley, Gap, 
and Bordeaux. — Short account of her life and labors. 175 



CHAPTER III. 

Mother St. John Marcoux founds the Congregation in Oulias 
and Chambe'ry. — Development of her work by Mother 
Fglicite" Veyrat. — Establishments in Denmark, Scandi- 
navia, Russia and South America. — Foundations of Rome, 
Annecy, India, and England. — Foundations of Ajaccio 
and other places in Corsica. — Mme. de le Roche jacquelin 
provides for the establishment of the Congregation in La 
Vendee and Touraine. — The Sisters are asked for America. 185 

CHAPTER IV. 

Departure of the Missionaries. — Reception by the Bishop of 
St. Louis. — Establishment at Cahokia. — Trials and diffi- 
culties. — Inundation of the Mississippi. — Novitiate at Ca- 
rondelet. — The Congregation of St. Louis. — Its Provinces. 208 

CHAPTER V. 

Foundations at Philadelphia. — The Novitiate at Mc Sherry s- 
town. — Its removal later to Chestnut Hill. — Establish- 
ment of the Congregation of St. Joseph at "Wheeling, 
Buffalo, Rochester, Brooklyn, and other Eastern cities. 
Convents of St. Joseph in the South. — Foundations in 
Canada. . . . . .223 



i o Contents. 

CHAPTER VI . 

Mother St. John's affectionate solicitude for her missionary 
children. — Extracts from her correspondence. — The Count- 
ess de la Rochejacquelin's letters to the American Sis- 
ters. — Statistical account of the Congregation of St. 
Joseph in both Hemispheres. .... 245 



-BOOK IV.- 

Olosing years of Mother St. John's life. 

CHAPTER I. 

Mother St. John's desire to secure a suitable successor. — 
Mother Sacred Heart of Jesus is appointed Assistant Su- 
perior General. — The Mother-General's greatness of soul. 
— Her re-election. ..... 257 

CHAPTER II. 

Mgr. de Pins demands Mother St. John's resignation. — Elec- 
tion of Mother Sacred Heart. — Mother St. John obeys like 
a, novice. — Last years of the "Venerable Mother . — Her edi- 
fying patience. — Her holy death. — Circular letters to the 
Congregation. — Gratitude due to Religious Founders. . 265 

CHAPTER III. 

Mother St. John's portrait. — Efficacy of her prayers with God. 
Testimony rendered to the virtues of her American mis- 
sionaries. — Reflections on Christian education. 274 



To the American Edition. 

The desire to render generally accessible to the Sisters 
of St. Joseph some of the records of our beloved Congre- 
gation, at present available only to those conversant with 
French, has prompted the translation of the present work. 
All the English-speaking communities of our Institute 
treasure a special reverence for Rev. Mother St. John 
Fontbonne, for to the Congregation of Lyons they, with 
but very few exceptions, can trace their origin. The inter- 
est, then, that attaches itself to whatever concerns one's 
religious family, will, we trust, secure a welcome for our 
book, whatever may be its faults and shortcomings. 

We have rendered the Abbe Rivaux's " Life " some- 
what freely, taking the liberty to add or curtail where full- 
er and later information seemed to render it necessary. 
The sketches of Foundations in various parts of the world, 
which are not to be found in the original, were introduced 
at the suggestion of one whose wish we regard as law. 
Brief and defective as they necessarily are, we feel confi- 
dent they will render the work more acceptable to our 
Sisters in both the Old and the New World. 

To the dear correspondents, who from our different 
communities so promptly forwarded us the asked-f or data, 
we return our grateful acknowledgments : — without their 



1 2 Preface to the A merican Edition. 

co-operation, our researches would, in many cases, have 
been fruitless. 

Should our labors have the coveted result of making our 
Blessed Father St. Joseph more loved, the grace of our 
holy vocation more fully appreciated, we shall have been 
repaid far beyond our deserts. 

The Sisters of St. Joseph. 
Mt. St. Joseph, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, 

Feast of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception, 1886. 



AUTHOR'S DECLARATION. 

I declare that in relating in this book some extraordi- 
nary facts, established by well-authenticated testimony, and 
in giving the name of Saint or Blessed to persons whom 
the Church has not beatified or canonized, I intend it only 
in the measure authorized by the decrees of Pope Urban 
VIII. 

I declare, moreover, that I submit this work to the in- 
fallible authority of the Soverign Pontiff, disavowing sin- 
cerely whatever therein may be found not conformable to 
the teaching of the Holy Church, my Mother, whom I wish 
to love and serve until my last sigh, and in whose obedi- 
ence it is my hope to live and die. 



To His Eminence Cardinal Caverot, Archbishop of 
Lyons and Vienne, and Primate of the Gauls. 

My Lord: 

Deign to accept from your children, the Sisters of St. 
Joseph, the Dedication of the Life of Eev. Mother St. 
John, their Foundress in Lyons. 

It is from the pen of the holy and learned Abbe 
Kivaux, to whom we are already indebted for the Life of 
Rev. Mother M. of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Death 
has, to our great regret, prevented his giving to the work 
the development he had intended ; but, through respect to 
his memory, we refrain from adding anything thereto. In 
the second edition, if such be called for, we hope to com- 
plete it with notes already collected. 

In publishing the lives of our Foundresses and Mothers, 
it is our intention that, by reading and meditating on them, 
we may become more thoroughly imbued with their spirit, 
may enter more closely into their interior life, and thus re- 
new the primitive fervor of our beloved Institute. 

History shows us these venerable Mothers constantly sus- 
tained, encouraged, and directed by holy Prelates and illus- 
trious Princes of the Church. But in this respect we need 
not envy them, since Divine Providence, which appor- 
tions righteous men along the course of ages, according to 
the necessities of His works, has deigned to give us, in the 
person of Your Eminence, a support proportionate to our 
weakness and to the dangers of an epoch in which evil is 
ever on the increase. 



1 6 Dedication. 

Venerable Prelate, so worthy of your illustrious prede- 
cessors, permit us, then, to lay at your feet this volume, as 
a tribute of our profound veneration and filial piety. 
Your blessing, my Lord, and your approbation will be an 
additional mark of the paternal goodness and benevolent 
protection you have ever lavished on the Sisters of Saint 
Joseph. 

Accept, we beg, the expression of our lively gratitude. 
We supplicate the Sacred Heart of Jesus to render to 
you a hundred-fold all the good 3^011 have done to our 
Congregation, and to preserve long to the Church a Prel- 
ate who causes her to be so much loved and honored. 

Deign, my Lord, to bless your numerous family of St. 
Joseph, and, in particular, I humbly pray, her whose hon- 
or it is to be 

Your most respectful and humble daughter, 

Se. Marie Emilie Blaffaed, 

Superior General. 



Of His Emixexce Cardinal Oaverot. 

Rev. Mother and Daughter : 

I have just received the Life of Rev. Mother St. John, the 
dedication of which you have so kindly asked me to 
accept. 

By adding this interesting biography to that of the 
holy Mother of the Sacred Heart, his previous work, 
the venerable Abbe Rivaux has deserved well of your 
Congregation. 

Thanks to his labors, you now possess an exact and de- 
tailed history of 3 T our origin : you can gaze on the por- 
traits of your first Mothers, those whom God raised up 
for the reorganization of your Institute ; for their labors, 
their sufferings, and their virtues are renewed in these pages 
consecrated to their memory. Herein you will find your 
religious archives, those treasures precious to you beyond 
all price. 

I can well understand, Rev. Mother, how eager you are 
to place in the hands of your religious daughters the Life 
of her whom they so justly venerate as their Foundress. 
You have every reason to believe that the work will tend 
greatly to their edification ; for what more profitable or 
delightful to the members of a religious family than to go 
back to the early days of their foundation, days super- 
abounding in the benedictions of Heaven ! 



1 8 Approbation. 

May God, then, deign, Rev. Mother and daughter, to 
hear your prayers, which my heart re-echoes, by preserving 
in your dear Congregation the spirit which influenced its 
birth and development ; that spirit which, even until now, 
has drawn down upon it such abundant benedictions. 

Yours wholly in our Lord, 

^ L. M. Card. Caverot. 

Pagnos (Jura), Aug. 26, 1885. 



INTRODUCTION. 




HE venerable servant of God of whom we are about 
to write had been a religious of St. Joseph pre- 
vious to the Revolution of 1789. Expelled from 
her convent by revolutionary impiety, immured in a prison, 
and condemned to death, she owed her life only to the 
fall of Robespierre. 

Ardently desirous of martyrdom, she, with tears, be- 
wailed her loss, when the jailer who w T as to have led her to 
the scaffold came, instead, with the tidings of her deliver- 
ance. While the most lively emotions of joy thrilled the 
hearts of her fellow-prisoners at the prospect of freedom, 
sadness overwhelmed her, who, like the great Apostle, 
burned with desire to be immolated for God and to be 
with Jesus Christ. 

Retiring, then, to the bosom of her family, she there 
lived so holily, so faithful to her religious vocation, as to 
merit the honor of becoming, after the Revolution, the in- 
strument of Divine Providence for the re-establishment of 
her beloved Congregation, and for giving it, with a new 
constitution adapted to the exigencies of the times, an ex- 
tent, a unity, an amplitude, a brilliancy, which it had not 
previously known. 

Her long life of more than eighty-four years was wholly 
spent in loving, practising, extending, and propagating 
the religious life, as well as in founding and directing 
numberless houses of the Congregation. Hence she has 
left, in both hemispheres, a numerous posterity of souls 
consecrated to God by the holy vows of religion. 



20 Introduction. 

Xo one, even the most unobservant, can be ignorant 
that in our day is raging a tempest of error and falsehood, 
in which the religious Orders are calumniated and attacked 
with the utmost virulence. Not only is the supernatural 
phase of their existence misunderstood and misrepresented, 
but their social influence is systematically ignored. Even 
when men cease to regard them as malefactors, they fail 
not to arouse public opinion against them. 

In view of such hatred, — explicable only as the effect of 
passion or ignorance, — it seems useful, nay, even necessary 
to present here some serious considerations on the private 
life, services, sanctity, and rights of monastic institutions 
and of religious, the holy militia, living by renunciation 
and devotedness, fulfilling day and night their sublime 
ministry of public prayer and perpetual self-immolation 
for the salvation of the world. 



The monastic and religious life is, as it were, a flower in- 
digenous to the Catholic religion and inseparable from it ; 
nevertheless, it has not always existed ; at least, not in the 
form it has assumed since the early persecutions. A tree 
has existence before it bears its blossoms ; these, even when 
they do appear, may be killed by time, frost, or storm, the 
robust trunk retaining, meanwhile, that life and sap des- 
tined to produce new blossoms. 

So, likewise, the germ and principle of the religious 
life is contained in the Gospel ; the evangelical sap 
tends, necessarily, to its development. As long as this 
fruitful tree lives, in what climate soever it may be, the 
divine sap will bud forth and adorn it with flowers of the 
religious life. " It is certain, " says Balmes, " that relig- 
ious Orders will spring into being wherever religion her- 
self exists. One is the effect ; the other, the cause." 



Introdtictioji. 2 1 

Some climates and seasons are, undoubtedly, more favor- 
able than others to their full and vigorous growth. Per- 
secutions, too, must be encountered : they are their win- 
ter and their storm ; but when peace and serenity return, 
they, too, will reappear as surely as flowers spring forth 
to greet the return of May. 

"You have seen," says Montalembert, "a forest rav- 
aged and destroyed by the woodman's axe : on every side 
reign death, devastation, sterility. The grand old oaks 
are fallen, and their withered foliage lies heaped on the 
surrounding soil ; their giant branches are stripped and 
dismembered, their mutilated trunks bestrew the ground ; 
nothing has been spared, and the very saplings that flour- 
ished beneath the shade of the ancestral boughs seem 
included in the common ruin. And yet, nothing has 
perished ! From those very stumps which the axe has 
discrowned, strength and life shall spring forth anew. 
Clothed in a second growth, they will bud and blossom 
with additional splendor. In like manner, nay, with 
still more marvellous fecundity, from the mangled yet 
inexhaustible womb of the Church, shall be brought 
forth the invincible race of the servants of God." 

Such is the richness of that interior sap which descends 
from Heaven to nourish the religious life, that it must, 
necessarily, surmount every obstacle, and, like a vigorous 
plant, make its way in spite t>f every impediment. 

Artisans of nothingness, the icoodmen of Atheism set 
themselves eagerly to destroy the works of God ; but He, 
the indefatigable Creator, ceases not to reanimate what has 
proceeded from His hands. The religious life is insepar- 
ably united with the life of the Church ; it shall end only 
when she ceases to exist. 



2 2 Introduction. 

ii. 

The end of the religious life, then, is to raise the soul to 
Christian perfection by the practice of the evangelical 
counsels, which, no less than the precepts, are a part of 
the Gospel and of religion. The whole moral doctrine of 
the Gospel rests > as we know, on the incontestable fact 
that there exist in man three great concupiscences or dis- 
ordered passions, whence proceed all the vices and evils of 
the world : pride, or immoderate love of honors ; avarice, 
or unbridled search after riches ; and lust, or the ill-regu- 
lated love of sensual pleasures. 

To these passions our Lord Jesus Christ opposes the con- 
trary virtues of humility, disinterestedness or poverty, and 
chastity. In a common and ordinary degree, these virtues 
are binding upon all, and by their practice alone is assured 
to society any peace or happiness that can be enjoyed here 
below. In their extraordinary and perfect sense, humility 
or obedience, poverty, and chastity are simply of counsel, 
and constitute the religious life or state of evangelical per- 
fection, so bitterly calumniated, and, at times, regarded as 
an institution, not only useless, but positively injurious to 
society — as if the practice of perfect virtue could bring 
ruin on the world ! 

11 Public utility/' writes the great Leibnitz, "requires 
that there be men given to the ascetic or monastic life, 
who, treading pleasures under foot, may devote themselves 
wholly to divine contemplation and perfect virtue. This 
is not one of the least beautiful prerogatives of the Catho- 
lic Church, in which alone we find reproduced so many 
eminent examples of the ascetic life." 

"The contemplative life is the most divine of all," 
writes Plato, that almost inspired philosopher of antiquity. 
On this " summit of practical Catholicity," to use the ex- 
pression of Mgr. Dupanloup, flourish the most exquisite 
blossoms of humanity. 



Introduction. 2 3 

in. 

Invincible and divine by its evangelical origin, the re- 
ligious life responds, like the Christian life, to the most 
intimate requirements of the human soul and society. He, 
indeed, must be unacquainted with human nature, who 
does not recognize that amidst the vast number of souls 
whom Jesus calls into His sheep-fold, there are some who 
vehemently hunger and thirst after Christian perfection, 
and that the ordinary path of virtue, leading though it 
does to Heaven, is not enough to satiate their desires. 
" There are, it is true," says the learned convert Hurter, 
" other routes by which souls may journey to Heaven ; but 
shall we esteem as a fool him who chooses the steepest and 
most rugged, because it is at the same time the most di- 
rect, most certain, most heroic, and most favorable to wis- 
dom and perfection ? " 

"Again,''' he says, " as the hart pants after fountains 
of living water, so to the religious life have ever tended the 
aspirations of those grand souls thirsting after God and 
perfection, such as the Pauls, the Anthonys, the Brunos, 
the Francises, the Clares, Theresas, and hosts of others. 
Such exquisite fruits ripen only on the choicest stock, take 
root in none but the richest soil." 

Besides these souls of the highest order, there are many 
others who desire solitude. Natural attraction ; disgust 
or dread of the world ; a desire to secure one's virtue and 
salvation ; a yearning for peace, tranquillity, and recollec- 
tion ; a taste for prayer and study ; love of solid and holy 
learning ; all these different motives act irresistibly on a 
vast number of souls. 

Debar them from the monastery and the convent, you 
deprive them of their element ; you render them useless, 
nay, it may sometimes be, even injurious, to society. 

There is a third class for whom the monastery and the 



24 Introduction. 

religious life become a necessity : for penitents, for the 
unfortunate. The world, as is often truly said, is a sea 
bestrewn with shipwrecks. What hopes deceived, what 
affections blighted, what illusions dissipated ! What bit- 
ter regrets, what frightful remorse — remorse, happily often 
the first step towards salutary repentance ! Leave no such 
asylum to those souls, weary of life and of themselves, and 
often despairing, and what a tempest of crime will desolate 
the world ! As dislocated, suffering, dangerous members, 
those victims of vice or misfortune will become the scourges 
of society. Gather them, on the contrary, into a convent 
as into a bark of safety ; under kind and gentle influence 
they will be consoled, encouraged, and instructed ; and that 
desperate soul which might have become the terror of its 
fellows, will, in that asylum, be transformed into a useful 
and edifying member of society, it may be, even, into a 
Saint. 

This is what M. Augustin Thierry means when he says 
that "A convent is not only a place of meditation and 
prayer, but often an asylum opened against the invasion of 
barbarism in all its forms." 

" Compare," says Victor Hugo himself, ei the convent 
with the prison ; the expiation of crime, forcible and full 
of rage, with the expiation of love and recovered inno- 
cence ! " 

The world and its maxims make men wricked and vicious : 
the convict's cell consummates their vice or despair : the 
convent alone has power to convert and transform. 

IT. 

The convent and monastery owe their power of sanctify- 
ing and rehabilitating souls to their life of innocence and 
perfection, to their life of prayer, of mortification or ex- 
piation, and of charity. For in these four things lies the 



Introduction. 2 5 

essential end, the supreme object of the existence of monks 
and religious. 

Now, as has been before remarked, the religious life is a 
flower of the grand and glorious tree of the Church ; and 
Christian perfection, itself the richest fruit of the Gospel, 
is the sole reason of its being. Nay, the religious life is, 
properly speaking, only Christian perfection realized ac- 
cording to time and place, by divers means, but always 
based on those three vows of religion, diametrically opposed 
to the three great concupiscences which ravage the earth. 

By his vow of obedience, which subjects him to a rule 
conformable to the Gospel and represented by a wise su- 
perior, the religious sacrifices his pride and self-love, and 
with them, the vices and errors of which they are so fruit- 
ful a source. 

Thanks to his vow of poverty, the religious is preserved 
from the excesses, disorders, and injustices which, through 
all time, have been the result of avarice and the love of 
wealth. So fatal is this passion that the Gospel, in all 
things else so calm and moderate, fulminates against it a 
terrible anathema : " Woe to the rich ! " Vce clivitibus ! 

By the vow of absolute chastity or virginity, the relig- 
ious rises above what is merely natural and becomes angelic. 
" Some sages and philosophers,'' cries out St. John Chry- 
sostom, " have, indeed, vanquished anger or despised riches; 
but as to virginity, it has never bloomed with them. On 
this point they grant us the victory, acknowledging it as 
something superior to nature." 

Hence the Church is so enamored of virgins, that she 
surrounds them with the most tender solicitude, and con- 
siders them the most illustrious portion of her family, her 
crown of glory, her most precious jewel. Her greatest 
Doctors have, in their regard, been prodigal of admiration 
and the flowers of their genius. Virgins, says St. Cyprian, 
are angels among men. Virginity, exclaims St. Ambrose, 



26 Introduction. 

has Heaven for her country : here she sojourns as a lovely 
and illustrious foreigner : on high she dwells as princess 
in her palace, and the angels call her sister ! 

Virgins, according to a pious author, form, as it were, a 
pleiad of pure stars, a milky way in the firmament of the 
Church, a phenomenon wholly unknown outside her pale. 

v. 

The monastic and religious life not only sanctifies and 
edifies, but the monk, the religious, prays and expiates. 
Humanity is overwhelmed with miseries, wants, and in- 
firmities. What optimist dare deny it ? Now the logical 
language — rational as well as Christian — of want and misery 
is prayer. Can we conceive a being as loving, suffering, 
thinking, or even desiring, without giving utterance to 
prayer ? But prayer is the very office of the religious. 

Let us again cast our eyes upon the earth: it is covered 
with crime and disorders. Now sin calls for expiation. 
Hence the custom of sacrifice, which, universal as it is 
mysterious, has existed everywhere and always: in the Old 
and the New World; amidst savages and civilized nations, 
bearing ever the same characteristics, — a chosen vic- 
tim, an innocent victim substituted for the guilty one 
and satisfying for him. It is, as Cicero says, a law of na- 
ture. 

Are not, then, the religious, whether male or female, 
who pray, who suffer in expiation of sin, the saviours of 
society, the benefactors of the human race? Hence men 
free from the dominion of folly or prejudice regard them 
as innocent victims, serving as a counterpoise to the ini- 
quities of the world. " It is necessary that some should 
pray for those who never pray," acknowledges Victor Hugo. 
"The Saints bear up the world," writes St. Jerome, "and 
by the power of prayer ward off its imminent ruin." 

The Emperor Constantine begged the prayers of the 



Introduction. 2 7 

humble St. Anthony, and the great Theodosius, on the 
eve of his victorious expedition, recommended himself 
and his army to the intercession of a poor hermit. 

Let us remember Sodom and Gomorrha, which would 
have been preserved from destruction had they contained 
ten just men. " Go about through the streets of Jeru- 
salem," said the Lord to Jeremias, "and see, and consider, 
and seek in the broad places thereof, if you can find a man 
that executeth judgment : and I will be merciful to it." 
Is it not, then, incontestable that the Saints, being expia- 
tors, are saviours ? 

He who prays for the people, says the Scripture, is a 
lover of his brethren: Hie est fratrum amator, qui mul- 
tum orat pro populo. 

Eead the History or Constitutions of any religious Order; 
you will find that one of its chief ends is to pray for 
the world, to expiate its crimes. Then, in leaving the 
world, the religious does not abandon it; he separates him- 
self from only that he may become more useful to it. He 
departs, it is true, from the ranks of society, but it is to 
immolate himself for its conservation. In this there is 
something superior to the most beautiful instances of self- 
devotion recorded in history. It is an imitation of Jesus 
Christ, who suffers death "because it is expedient that 
one man die for the people." The last day alone shall re- 
veal how, by the prayers of religious, storms have been 
prevented, tempests dissipated, and chastisements warded 
off, even from those very persons who have most despised 
them ! 

Like those magnetic rods which we place on the summit 
of our buildings to preserve them from lightning, the 
peaceful domes of convents rise towards Heaven to depre- 
cate its wrath by continual supplications of love. Yes, 
we have said it ; they are veritable lightning-rods ! 



28 Introduction. 

VI. 

Dwellings of saintliness, of prayer and expiation by 
mortification, convents and monasteries are also houses 
of charity, almsgiving, and all good works. 

Whatever certain volumes, in which ignorance rivals 
prejudice, may pretend, the history of religious and monas- 
tic institutions is a monument as heroic as it is sublime. It 
has been read, recounted, celebrated, admired by the great- 
est Saints and the grandest geniuses of the world, the 
Athanasiuses, Jeromes, Augustines, Gregorys, and others. 
Such names compel respect; they cannot be overruled by a 
shrug of the shoulders or a shameless lie. " It has not been 
sufficiently remarked/' says a grave author, "that all, or 
nearly all the Fathers of the Church, the grand Doctors 
of primitive times, were members of the monastic order." 

Monks and religious were the models of humanity, the 
fathers and benefactors of the poor, the civilizers of bar- 
barians, the defenders of the weak and of true liberty, 
the introducers of agriculture, the example of laborers, 
the preservers and propagators of study and science. This 
is the true, irrefutable history of monks, whether in 
the East or the West. On which account, Mgr. Plantier 
has said that, in attacking the monastic institution, one 
cannot escape an odious alternative : he must either cal- 
umniate what he knows, or blaspheme what he knows 
not. 

VII. 

In every epoch, the religious and monastic institution 
has proved an inexhaustible source of benefits, infinitely 
diversified, according to time and place. 

It originated, as we know, in the East, not far from the 
banks of the Nile, in the scorching solitudes of the Thebaid. 
The distinctive sign of the Oriental monk was absolute 



/;/ trodti ction . 2 9 

seclusion. Whether hermit or cenobite, he isolated him- 
self from the world, and retired into the desert, there 
to pray, labor, and practise fasts and austerities, the 
very thought of which affrights our delicacy. One might 
say that to him the body was nothing ; the soul, 
everything. 

To judge wisely of any institution, one must consider it 
amidst the circumstances attending its development, and 
have regard, also, to its providential end. Now, the 
society from which the Oriental monk withdrew was a 
society enervated by luxury and the abuse of all material 
delights. The land from which he fled was a land of 
pleasure. Everything tended to self -gratification : the 
delightf ulness of the climate; the perfumes that filled the 
air ; the beauty of the heavens ; a civilization which had 
exhausted all the refinements of voluptuousness, and conse- 
crated sensual pleasures themselves to the divinity; effem- 
inated arts ; an emasculated literature; in a word, every- 
thing that could be seen, heard, or felt, invited men to 
pleasure, to luxuriousness. And yet, such a society was 
to be subjected to the law of the Gospel, was to be per- 
meated with its spirit. Heroic undertaking, for the ac- 
complishment of which the Oriental monk was the 
instrument chosen by Divine Providence ! 

It would be a grave error, writes Balmes, to imagine 
that so many thousands of solitaries failed to exercise 
great social influence. In regard to morality, the power 
of their example was immense. People ran to the desert, 
gathered around the monks, questioned them, listened to 
them. What a preaching was theirs! How could exhor- 
tations, enforced by such example, fail to have effect? 
How could people disregard the soul and its destiny, when 
they beheld men, for the sake of salvation, condemn 
themselves to such rude privations, such rigid penances? 
Reflection and emotion triumphed over the most careless, 



30 Introduction. 

often over the ill-disposed ; so that many who went thither 
to mock, yielded to the spell of an influence which re- 
tained them in the desert. 

How often might be seen poor wanderers, second Mag- 
dalens, returning thence to astonish and edify the world 
by their austerities, as they had previously disgusted it by 
their debaucheries. 

Of the crowds that daily flocked to visit those holy 
solitudes, it could truly be said that none returned un- 
broken to the haunts of society ; each left in the desert 
its quota of holy penitents, who, allured by the charms of 
its heavenly atmosphere, sought admission among the 
fervent votaries of penance and prayer. 

VIII. 

Nor is this a problem difficult of solution: — the soph- 
isms of worldly wisdom, the prejudices of ignorance 
were totally vanquished. Men could not regard as foolish, 
or above the power of nature, a life which produced men 
so wise and calm, so reasonable and just, so saintly and 
so happy; a life whose supernatural character was fre- 
quently attested by stupendous miracles to which the 
Doctors of the Church have borne witness. 

Could men declare the accomplishment of the Gospel 
precepts to be impossible to nature, aided by grace, when 
they beheld in the daily lives of the monks the heroic re- 
alization of the evangelical counsels? And that, too, 
beneath the scorching tropical sun; within sight of cities 
the most voluptuous, such as Alexandria and Antioch; on 
the classic soil of pagan softness ; in lands the very atmos- 
phere of which seemed an incentive to pleasure? Thus it 
was that from the deserts of Nitria, the Thebaid, and 
others was wafted over the world the perfume of grace, 
sanctity, and edification. To the farthest bounds of the 
empire the salutary impression spread, communicating to 



Introduction. 3 1 

society something of the monks' own life of innocence, 
temperance, prayer, penance, and unselfishness. This was 
their mission; its accomplishment is their glory. 

IX. 

To contemplation, prayer, and expiation the Eastern 
monks added manual labor, estimating, even, by one's 
diligence in the latter, his progress in perfection. St. 
Hilarion's address to his body became a proverb in the 
desert: "If thou wilt not labor, neither shalt thou eat; 
and if thou eatest, it is only that thou mayest be the better 
able to labor." 

By labor they were enabled not only to supply their own 
wants, but also to exercise hospitality and bestow abun- 
dant alms ; it helped, also, to subjugate the body, and 
removed the dangers of idleness. St. Augustine assures us 
that, in his time, wherever there were any poor, there also 
were to be found monks ministering to their necessities. 
They seemed, indeed, to consider themselves the farmers 
of the poor. Admirable farmers, exclaims Balmes, who, 
denying everything to self, cultivated the desert and made 
the very rocks fruitful, to provide revenues for those who 
had nothing ! 

When the poor man went to the monasteries of the 
desert, he was received as a friend, nay, as a master ; the 
most affectionate care was lavished on him ; the monks 
disputed for the honor of serving him, of preparing his 
bed, of watching over him if he was ill. Orphans were 
most tenderly received. We must, writes St. Basil, the 
great legislator of the religious life in the East, — we 
must care for and educate the orphan with the utmost 
charity, as the child of the religious family. 

Such exquisite charity towards the neighbor contrasts 
wonderfully with the frightful austerity which the monk 
exercised on himself. It would seem that the first end of 



32 Introduction. 

his providential mission was to carry moral energy to the 
highest degree of heroism ; and mortification of the senses 
to its farthest limits ; to arouse, excite, and encourage souls 
in lands where indolence, effeminacy, pagan corruption, 
and climatic delights seemed to render impossible the 
simple practice of the Gospel precepts. Surely, under such 
circumstances, we may well exclaim, How wonderful is God 
in his Saints ! Mirabilis in Sanctis suis Dens ! 

x. 

Nor was the Western monk less strongly animated by 
the love of God and desire for his own salvation. Like 
those of the East, he sacrificed everything to this supreme 
interest : family, friends, fortune, honors, rest, comfort, 
and pleasure ; he became poor and chaste ; he died to the 
world. Like them, he was an angel of prayer and expi- 
ation, but he was less severe to his body ; and his fasts, al- 
though almost continual, were not so rigorous. Difference 
of climate and constitution in the North had to be taken 
into account, and St. Benedict, the monastic legislator of 
the West, wisely arranged for this. 

The Western monk, exerting his strength less in corporal 
mortifications, reserved it for labor, which, by his rule, 
was made a rigorous obligation ; and this labor was, prin- 
cipally, the cultivation of the soil. Herein we must again 
admire the wonderful dispensations of Divine Providence. 

The excessive Eoman taxes, as well as the great barbar- 
ian invasions of the fifth and sixth centuries, had led to the 
almost total abandonment of agriculture ; there remained 
but few farmers, and those were half savage and idola- 
trous. The druidical forests, which still existed, extending 
themselves so as to meet on all sides, covered immense 
tracts of country. 

Bands of monks, writes a grave author, went forth, not 
only into the fields, but into the most distant and impene- 



Introduction. ^ 

trable forests, which they disputed with the wild beasts, at 
that time so numerous and daring that they might often be 
seen prowling, in broad daylight, through the Gallo-Ro- 
manic towns. 

The monastery once established and the land brought 
under cultivation, people gathered around it to find assist- 
ance, protection, security. A village, a town sprang up, 
and solitudes, until then uninhabited, became peopled with 
numerous families. " Soon," says the learned Mabillon, 
" to the ordinary cultivation of the soil, the monks added 
gardens, orchards, parterres." Happy, indeed, was the 
country in which a peaceful colony of St. Benedict's chil- 
dren arrived ! Happy the soil wherein they took root ! 
Happy the surrounding population ! How did those at a 
distance envy them ! 

The clearing and cultivation of the woody and swampy 
lands of the North — Germany, Belgium, Holland, Eng- 
land and others, even to Scandinavia and the ice-bound 
coasts of Greenland — was almost exclusively the work of 
the monks. 

As to France, it has been estimated that the culture of 
one-third of her territory is due to them, as is also the 
existence of nearly one-half of her cities and towns. In 
Lombardy, the monks, chiefly the sons of St. Bernard, 
taught the peasants the arts of irrigation, and made it the 
richest and most fertile land of Europe. 

In Spain and Portugal, all candid travellers, even Protest- 
ants and Free-thinkers, have recognized monastic cultiva- 
tion as the principal origin of the national agriculture. 
Germany, in particular, says Cardinal Pacca, is, so to say, 
the creation of the monks. Hence, even Michelet called 
it the Daughter of the Popes, because it was the popes 
who sent the monks thither, and directed and encouraged 
them in their painful toils. The Benedictines, says Guizot, 
have been the cultivators of Europe. Now, according to 



34 In trodu ction. 

Cantu, it is by agriculture alone that man establishes him- 
self in a country, and attaches himself to it by all those 
sentiments which render sacred the name of Fatherland. 
Whence it follows that the monks have been truly the 
founders of European civilization. 

* xi. 

While the Benedictine agriculturist watered with his 
sweat the soil of Europe, which he fertilized by his toil 
alone, without the resources of modern civilization, the 
Benedictine scholar collected, preserved, and copied ancient 
manuscripts ; thus preparing the materials destined to re- 
store human learning. 

Abbeys, says M. G-ranier du Cassagnac, have been the 
nursery of modern civilization. They have cultivated 
ideas as well as the soil ; and sown, in their time, the harvest 
we reap in ours. 

That the Benedictines, during several centuries, enlight- 
ened and nurtured Europe, is, says M. Lenormant, a fact 
acknowledged by all historians, whatever their origin or 
opinions. Without the monasteries, writes Leibnitz, all the 
ancient manuscripts would have been lost, and science with 
them. As copyists of books and manuscripts, the nuns 
rivalled the monks. Neither sarcasm nor falsehood can do 
away with the fact that conventual libraries were, in 
Europe, the first archives of knowledge and literature. 

Besides the Scriptorium, 1 which was the printing-office 
of that epoch, every monastery had its school, wherein 
were studied the Sacred Scriptures, the works of the Greek 
and Latin Fathers and Christian poets. It seems to us that 
biblical literature and philosophy, the literature and 
philosophy of St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom, 
were well suited to such superior minds. 

1 The Scriptorium of a monastery was a hall of solid stone walls, with iron doors 
and windows, in which manuscripts could be preserved from the ravages of fire or 
barbarians It was there, also, that the copyists pursued their labors. 



Introduction, 35 

XII. 

On the Western monk was imposed another gigantic 
and superhuman task, — the conversion and civilization of 
the barbarian hordes that had overrun Europe. Bar- 
barism without the monks, says Montalembert, was chaos ; 
with the monks, it has become Europe Christianized and 
civilized, the leader of the world. 

Sent, directed, sustained, and encouraged by the Papacy, 
they, with invincible perseverance, carried out, in a great 
measure, the heroically holy work of moulding and form- 
ing the diverse elements of those barbarian conquerors, in 
order to civilize and sanctify them. 

Thus, under religious and monastic action in Gaul, the 
Visigoths, Burgundians, Eranks, Aquitanians, Normans, 
and ancient Gauls formed the first and most glorious king- 
dom of the world, the " Most Christian " monarchy of 
France, "The Eldest Daughter " of the Church. 

Beyond the Pyrenees, from the commingling of Goths, 
Vandals, Suevi, Cantabrians, and Celtiberi came forth 
the " Catholic kingdom " of Spain ; while the remnants 
of the Huns, Vandals, Heruli, Ostrogoths, and Lombards 
formed the transalpine kingdom of Italy, under the glori- 
ous domination of Charlemagne. 

In Great Britain the Saxons, Britons, Picts, Scotch, 
and Irish, united by religion despite their natural and na- 
tional antipathies, won for their country the immortal title 
of " The Island of Saints." 

In Germany, hordes of fierce and idolatrous barbarians 
became so transformed as to merit that their nation should 
be called " The Daughter of the Popes." 

That such social regeneration was superhuman, no one 
can deny. Man would have failed, acknowledges M. 
Villemain ; religion alone had the power. The great agent 
of social salvation in the fifth and sixth centuries, savs M. 



o 



6 Introduction. 



Littre, was the Church, acting by her missionaries. 
Whatever there was of civilization at that time, was, of 
necessity, with the Church, and with the monks, the mil- 
itia of the Church. 



XIII. 

That colossal, humanitarian, and international work of 
transformation, union, and sanctiiication, which gave birth 
to the society known under the beautiful name of Chris- 
tianity, has never ceased to be continued, developed, and 
perfected. 

The children and disciples of St. Dominic, St. Francis, 
St. Ignatius, and other holy founders, sprang up, in the 
course of time, at the moment designed by Providence ; 
and, in conjunction with the sons of St. Benedict, 
seconded their Christian and social work ; with this differ- 
ence, however, that instead of living in the desert, they 
established themselves in the midst of society, the better 
to understand and provide for its wants. 

Never has Christianity known more devoted, more in- 
telligent preachers. They are instructors of youth, inde- 
fatigable apostles, scholars, literati, savants, theologians, 
historians, controversialists, missionaries, martyrs, labor- 
ers in every Christian work, intrepid soldiers of Cod and 
His Church, declared adversaries of vice and error ; and, 
on account of these two latter titles, honored with the 
bitterest hatred of heresy, unbelief, and human depravity. 
But we shall not recount here the unjust attacks and ini- 
quitous measures of which they have been the object dur- 
ing modern times ; nor shall we relate how they have 
been ignominiously proscribed, expelled from their peace- 
ful homes and consecrated sanctuaries. We prefer to 
pass over in silence those sad events ; events, moreover, so 
recently renewed. 



Introduction. 3 y 

To the services rendered to the Church and society by 
religious men have been added, from century to century, 
those of numerous Congregations of religious women ; 
devoted, some to the care of the sick, others to prayer, 
the greater number to the education of children of all 
ranks and conditions. It would be impossible to tell the 
good which those Congregations have done on this point 
to the Church and the family. If France, despite its er- 
rors and misfortunes, is still one of the most Catholic 
nations of the world, it is because its women, generally 
speaking, remain Christian. It is woman who preserves 
that religious atmosphere which still pervades France ; and 
this social benefit is due to the fact that, up till now, the 
education of women has been almost exclusively confided 
to religious Congregations. 

Hell and impiety are well aware of it ; hence their des- 
perate efforts to obtain control of education. It is to ob- 
tain this end that they are expelling the religious, God, 
the crucifix, catechism, and prayer from the primary 
school ; and have established, for secondary instruction, 
lyceums for girls, in which neither prayer nor religious 
instruction is permitted. 1 

Behold how the free-thinkers and free-masons wish to 
replace the Visitandines, those angels of prayer, who recall 
the name, renew the spirit and sweetness of St. Francis de 
Sales; the pious Ursulines ; the Dominicans, Sisters of the 
Angelic Doctor ; the Daughters of the Seraphic St. Francis ; 
the Daughters of St. Teresa, whom a Saint has styled tlie 
St. Paul of women ; the children of St. Vincent de Paul, 
who, to the sweetness of a virgin add the tenderness of 

1 This undertaking is so absurd and immoral that M. de Rochefort himself calls 
it " one of the blindest follies it is possible to commit. 1 ' The Catholic regards it 
as more than folly ; as an evil action, a crime. " Piety in a young girl is so touch- 
ing, and impiety, above all in a woman, is contrary to nature, 1 ' writes Talleyrand. 
'* Atheism in a man saddens me ; in a woman, it repels me, 11 says if. LegouvG, of 
the French Academy. 



38 Introduction. 

a mother and the courage of a soldier ; the Religious of 
the Sacred Heart, who are at the very Source of light, 
sweetness, and pure love; the Religious of St. Joseph, who 
claim as father, patron, and model him to whom God con- 
fided the care of His Beloved Son, of His Immaculate 
Mother, and, in latter times, of His Church. 

In all these Congregations live angelic creatures, who 
have nothing to do with the world save to shelter under 
their wings and bring up their young sisters destined to 
live in the world. Formed in their school, the latter learn 
the love of sacrifice ; virtue becomes their brightest orna- 
ment ; their charm is innocence, and the love which they 
inspire has in it something of religious veneration. 

Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, the glory, the model, the 
liberatrix of woman, incessantly reanimated and intensified 
by religious education, renews among women, with the love 
of purity and self-sacrifice, the truest and deepest piety, 
and crowns their very weakness with an aureola of glory 
which wins respect for even their tenderest years. By the 
resplendent halo of Christian modesty, woman is dignified, 
she is exalted from that state of abjection and degradation 
into which paganism has ever forced her ; from that glori- 
ous virtue she receives her right to equality with man, to 
his protection and veneration, and to that exquisite deli- 
cacy by which, wherever the reign of the Gospel prevails, 
man yields to woman the precedence. Let, then, the wo- 
men of our time be on their guard. They do not suffi- 
ciently realize that by godless, irreligious education the 
descent is paved to that pagan degradation, that shameless 
slavery, in which the female sex was held everywhere, 
prior to the advent of Christianity. 

XIV. 

In presence of the ingratitude shown for the benefits of 
religious Orders, the lies and calumnies heaped upon 



Infroduction. 3 9 

them, and the infamous war declared against them by de- 
nouncing them to the people and the state as their princi- 
pal enemy, their greatest danger, their members find 
themselves under like circumstances with St. Paul, as 
recorded by the pious author of the Imitation : 

" Though Paul endeavored to please all in the Lord, 
and become all to all, yet he made little account of be- 
ing judged by men. He labored abundantly for the 
edification and salvation of others, as much as lay in him, 
and as much as he could ; but he could not prevent being 
sometimes judged and despised by others. Therefore he 
committed all to God, who knoweth all, and defended him- 
self by patience and humility against the tongues of those 
who spoke unjustly, as well as those who devised vain and 
lying deceits, and who, according to caprice, made ac- 
quaintance of whatever they wished. However, he an- 
swered them sometimes, lest his silence might give occasion 
of scandal to the weak." ' For the same reason the Apos- 
tle wrote to the Corinthians : "I am become foolish; you 
have compelled me. For I ought to have been commended 
by you." 2 

In view of the forgetfulness, contempt, ingratitude, and 
calumnies which are their portion, religious Congregations 
do well to defend themselves, like the Apostle, "lest their 
silence be a cause of scandal to the weak." Hence, honest 
men, friends of truth and religion, delight in seeing hagiog- 
raphy flourish, and Lives of the Saints multiplied every- 
where. 

What happiness is it, moreover, to know the Saints, to 
publish what one knows of them ! 

For a long time the Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, 
and secular clergy, the Visitandines, Ladies of the Sacred 
Heart, and others, have been enriching hagiography and 

1 Imit., Bk. III., ch. 36. 2 II. Cor. xii. 11. 



4-0 Introduction. 

edifying the world by their pious recitals, their instructive 
annals, or the Lives of their Saints. Pious laics, even, have 
eagerly joined in the movement, because, as one of them 
says, " God saves souls and the world by the Saints." 
Under the present circumstances, especially, one must bless 
G-od for this defensive movement, at once instructive, edify- 
ing, legitimate, necessary, and conformable to the practice 
of the Apostle of Nations. 

Up to the present time the Sisters of St. Joseph have 
formed an exception to this general movement. We can 
understand it : simple, modesty humble, silent, after the 
example of their holy Father St. Joseph, who is the great 
Model and Patron of the interior life, ' ' hidden in Christ," 
according to the expression of the Apostle, they have lived 
by this Divine attraction, as if the heritage of tradition 
sufficed for them. 

But times have changed — " There is a time to speak and 
a time to be silent/' says the Holy Spirit. The Church, 
moreover, has spoken, by proclaiming St. Joseph Patron 
of the Universal Church. That interior life in which his 
daughters loved to remain hidden is attacked as it 
has never previously been. It is held up to the people 
not only as folly, but as injurious, dangerous, nay, even 
criminal ; and it is pursued and unmercifully beaten down 
as such. 

Formerly, when pagan tyrants accused the martyrs of 
odious crimes, they responded : "No, no; no crime is 
perpetrated amongst us. We are Christians, and our faith 
forbids not only the act, but the thought, the very shadow 
of evil." 

In like manner, religious, male and female, may and 
ought to say to those sectarian persecutors who accuse them 
of being the enemies of modern states and society : That 
is not true ; we are enemies to no one. Our whole life, 
our religious vocation is inspired, directed., and regulated 



Introduction. 4 1 

by a dual love : the love of God and the love of the people, 
whom we call the neighbor, because our faith tells us that 
all men, even the most wicked, the most erring, are 
neighbors and brethren. Eead the Lives, the sincere and 
candid histories of our Fathers, our models, our masters, 
our authors, our founders, and you will see that we are 
the children of the Saints : filii sanctorum sumus. To thus 
give light and truth to the blind and the evil-minded is 
one of the ends of modern hagiography. 

xv. 

On the other hand, St. Paul says to all Christians : 
" Eemember your prelates, who have spoken the word of 
God to you : whose faith follow, considering the end of 
their conversation." And again : " "We beseech you to 
know them who labored among you, and are over you 
in the Lord and admonish you, that you esteem them 
more abundantly in charity for their work's sake," which 
you are called to continue. Question your ancestors, 
says Moses, and they will declare to you that you are 
the portion of the Lord, His people, His inheritance. ' 

These recommendations of the Holy Spirit are of great 
importance and sovereign utility, particularly to religious 
Orders and Congregations, whose ancestors or founders 
were all Saints, the majority of them great Saints. To 
converse with them is to converse with Heaven, according 
to the words of St. Paul ; and one is sure, in their school, 
to learn how to serve God, love the neighbor, and sanctify 
one's self. " Philothea, " says St. Francis de Sales in his 
Introduction to the Devout Life, ' ' let us unite our hearts 
with those blessed souls : for as the young nightingales 
learn to sing with the old, so by the commerce we have 

1 Heb. xiil. 7 ; I. Thess. v. 12, 13 ; Deut. xxxii. 7, 9. 



42 Introduction. 

with the Saints, we shall the better learn to pray and to 
sing the Divine praises." 

Wise and adapted to all times as are these counsels of 
the amiable Saint, and conformable to those of the Holy 
Spirit, they are especially suitable to ours, wherein that 
which is know as the modem spirit, as full of softness and 
infirmity as of self-sufficiency and fatuity, laughs at the 
past and thinks itself superior in all things to bygone 
days. It is the case of the sick man, all the more seriously 
ill because he denies and is not sensible of his disease. 

The Congregation of St. Joseph, then, gives proof of a 
wisdom blessed by God, in returning to its past, so as to 
put before its young religious the lessons and example of 
its venerable founders and restorers. 

Good sense is the great master of human life, says Bos- 
suet. 

Now, Mother St. John possessed this precious gift in an 
eminent degree from her very youth. At twenty-five 
years of age, " she had the wisdom of the aged," wrote 
Mgr. de Gallard, Bishop of Puy, a holy prelate, confessor 
of the faith, who knew her perfectly. 

There is nothing truly great save goodness, says Bos- 
suet again ; and with this characteristic, Mother St. John 
was supereminently endowed. A mother in the truest and 
deepest sense of the word, her maternal affection won its 
just response in the extraordinary and universal filial love 
which animated her daughters, a love surpassed only by 
their feelings of veneration and confidence. 

One word of hers, whether spoken or written, decided 
any point, calmed all difference and smoothed away diffi- 
culties. For her children were convinced it came from a 
heart that loved, a mind just and upright, a soul whose will 
was subject to the will of God, and moved by the inspira- 
tions of grace. 

Her humility, resignation, and confidence in God rose 



In traduction. 4 3 

to heights attained only by Saints. Modelling her 
life on that of St. Joseph, she labored earnestly, indefati- 
gably, yet silently, peacefully, without parade or show, 
united heart and soul with God in a spirit of faith and 
simplicity truly patriarchal. 

The obedience due to the authority of her office was 
rendered light and easy by the esteem, confidence, and re- 
spect inspired by her example ; for, like her Divine Master 
and Exemplar, she practised before she taught or com- 
manded : " Jesus," says St. Luke, " began to do and to 
teach." l 

This life, as simple as it is solid and profound, reminds us 
of that of St. Joseph, whom Mother St. John chose as her 
Father and Model ; and it is our most earnest hope that it 
may lead to an increase of devotion to this great Saint. 
This is what our Holy Mother the Church invites us to 
by the new and ineffable splendor she has thrown around 
the name of the Saint of Nazareth, by taking refuge her- 
self, as did Jesus and Mary, beneath his protection and 
guardianship, as is shown by the Pontifical decree declar- 
ing St. Joseph the Patron of the Universal Church. 

The days of Herod are renewed, and an impious sect tries, 
as far as possible, to kill Jesus by destroying the faith and 
souls of children. 

Let us, then, go to St. Joseph with the venerable Mother 
St. John, and, like her, under the protection of this great 
Saint, labor unceasingly to preserve the faith, knowledge, 
love, and reign of Jesus, not only in our beloved and un- 
happy France, but wheresoever we may be called. 

" Who will find," says the Holy Spirit, "the valiant 
woman, more precious than diamonds ? " 

We have found her ; let us study, meditate, love, and 
follow the example she has given during her long and 

1 Acts i. 1. 



44 Introduction. 

saintly career ; fac secundum exemplar quod tibi monstra- 
tum est. 

Now, more than ever, is it necessary that weak and en- 
ervated souls should inhale the odor of good example, and 
breathe in an atmosphere of moral greatness. 

As the life of Mother St. John was the link which 
bound the new Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of 
Lyons with the primitive foundation of Le Puy, a brief 
sketch of the latter seems a necessary preface to the account 
of its restoration after the Revolution of 1789. 

On this account we here insert, regarding the birth of 
the Congregation, what has been given to the public, in 
our previous Life of Rev. Mother of the Sacred Heart of 
Jesus, second Superior-General of the Congregation of St. 
Joseph of Lyons. 



SHU 

irst Hook. 



Origin of the Congregation of The Sisters of 

St. Joseph. Mother St. John before and 

after the Revolution of 1789. 

CHAPTER I. 

Origin of + he Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph. — Its 
Founders. — End and Mission of the Institute. — Rev. Father Me- 
daille's Instructions to the first Sisters. — Approbation of the Con- 
gregation. — Its development. — The Community at Monistrol. — 
Designs of Providence in regard to its Superior, Mother St. 
John. 

HE pious Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, 
in our time so flourishing, so useful, both to 
the Church and society in every quarter of the 
globe, has had a double origin : the one before, the other 
after the Revolution of 1789. That revolutionary cyclone 
which overthrew the very pillars of the sanctuary respected 
not this humble Congregation, but assailed and dispersed 
it with a host of other grand and holy institutions, the 
offspring of faith and charity ; only a few scattered rem- 
nants found refuge in the mountain fastnesses of Forez 
and V T elay. 

This Institute, predestined to bear the blessed name of 
Joseph, name so dear to the hearts of Jesus and Mary, was 
founded in the middle of the seventeenth century ; its 
regular canonical erection dates from March 10, 1651. 




46 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Foutbonue. 

Beside the cradle of the new religious family which 
came to adorn and rejoice the Church, history shows us, as 
the authors of its existence, an eminent and holy prelate, 
Mgr. de Maupas, Bishop of Le Puy, and Key. Jean-Paul 
Medaille, a saintly missionary of the illustrious Society of 
Jesus. 

Henry Cauchon de Maupas du Tour's parents were 
Charles Cauchon de Maupas, Baron of Tour, Counsellor 
of State under Henry IV., and Anne de Gondi, a member 
of that illustrious family de Gondi, which attached to 
itself, as friend and spiritual father, the great St. Vincent 
de Paul. He was born at the Chateau de Cosson, which 
still exists, two leagues from Rheims, between Sermiers 
and Chamery. 

The noble child was held at the sacred font of baptism 
by Henry IV. himself, after whom he was named. The 
godson of the great king received a most brilliant education 
under the direction of his mother — a woman endowed 
with every grace and virtue suitable to her rank and sex — 
and his father, a nobleman as remarkable for his literary 
attainments as for his religious principles and the signal 
services he rendered his country and his king. 

Endowed with most happy dispositions, the young Count 
de Maupas responded admirably to the enlightened care of 
his illustrious parents, and gave evidence, at a very early 
age, of a decided inclination to the ecclesiastical state. 

Faithful to the inspirations of grace, he generously 
renounced all those worldly advantages which his birth 
and the favor of the king would have assured him in the 
world, and gave himself wholly and entirely to God and 
His Church. 

While yet young he was nominated to the Abbey of St. 
Denis at Rheims; and his conduct, amidst ecclesiastical 
dignities and the favors of fortune, reminded men of the 
great St. Charles Borromeo; for, despite his youth, he 



The Founders of the Congregation. 47 

administered his rich benefice with the zeal, prudence, and 
charity of a truly apostolic man. 

The Queen Consort, Anne of Austria, well aware of the 
Abbe de Maupas* extraordinary merit, wished to retain 
him at court, and, with this view, appointed him her 
Grand Almoner. The preference of this august queen 
was in itself a proof of his worth and talent, for she was 
possessed of rare gifts of discernment, so that for Bossuet 
she testified esteem and admiration worthy his powerful 
genius. Daughter, sister, wife, and mother of kings, she, 
says one of her biographers, was fully able to sustain 
gloriously the dignity of such titles. 

Belonging, through his mother, to that illustrious family 
de Gondi, whose children were educated, whose mother 
was directed by the great St. Vincent de Paul, the Abbe 
de Maupas had the happiness of frequent intercourse with 
that glorious Apostle of Charity, and was united with him 
by bonds of the closest friendship. 

Under the influence of such a mother and such a friend, 
it is not surprising .that the young Abbe dwelt amidst 
what Tertullian calls "the poison of the court," without 
detriment to either his modesty or his virtue. On the 
contrary, the dangers that encompassed him served but to 
render his holiness the more remarkable, and the good 
example of one so distinguished by birth and talents was 
productive of most happy results. 

A more extensive field, however, was to be opened to 
his zeal; for the see of Le Puy becoming vacant in 1641, 
King Louis XIII. nominated as its Bishop the Grand 
Almoner of his august wife. 

The Abbe's humility, however, so long resisted the appoint- 
ment, that he took possession of his see only on January 
10th, 1644, from which time he gave himself up wholly to the 
labor of the apostolate. Emulating the example of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, who said, "1 am the Good Shepherd; I 



48 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonnc. 

know my sheep, and my sheep know me," Mgr. de Maupas 
visited constantly and. assiduously the flock confided to his 
pastoral care. For seventeen years, that is to say, until 
1661, he was, to use the words of St. John, " the angel " of 
the happy church of Le Puy. A great admirer, a faithful 
imitator of St. Francis de Sales, whose biographer he 
became, he was distinguished among the prelates of his 
time by his eminent piety, vast erudition, and apostolic 
zeal. Every year of his administration was signalized by 
some important acts, tending either to the reformation 
and sanctification of his clergy, the religious instruction 
of his people, or the alleviation of human misery. Among 
the works to which his zeal and charity gave birth, the 
most remarkable, the most fruitful was, undoubtedly, the 
foundation of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. 
Joseph, at once contemplative, educational, and devoted 
to -works of charity. Teaching, although but lightly 
touched upon in the primitive constitutions, seemed, in 
some sort, necessary to associate the new institute to the 
Divine apostolate, and confide to it, in the mystical body of 
Jesus Christ, the united duties of Mary and Martha. 
Thus, by its threefold mission, it has embraced both the 
active life and the practice of evangelical perfection in 
all their plenitude. 

The admirable qualities of the Bishop of Le Puy drew 
around him magnanimous souls capable of seconding his 
arduous labors in the cause of God, among whom none 
was more closely united to him in heart and mind than 
Eev. Jean-Paul Medaille, of the Society of Jesus, the apos- 
tle of Velay, the evangelizer, not only of Le Puy, but of 
Clermont, Saint-Flour, Khodez, and Yienne. This holy 
religious suggested to Mgr. de Maupas the happy idea of 
establishing the Sisters of St. Joseph. In his apostolic 
journeys he had met many pious widows and young girls 
anxious to retire from the world, in order to devote them- 



The End and Mission of the Institute. 49 

selves, in a special manner, to prayer, the practice of vir- 
tue and tlieir own sanctification, while, at the same time, 
consecrating themselves to the service of their neighbor. 

This had been the first conception, the early inspiration 
of St. Francis de Sales, who, in founding his dear Order 
of the Visitation, " his joy and his crown," had intended it 
to be a congregation of women, who, to the ordinary exer- 
cises of the religious life, should add the visitation of the 
sick and poor, and, in general, all those labors which tend 
to promote the temporal or spiritual welfare of " the dear 
neighbor," as this amiable and devoted servant of God 
himself expresses it. * 

His plan, carried out in 1612, the first year of the new 
Iustitute, was modified five years later, at the urgent re- 
quest of Mgr. de Marquemont, Archbishop of Lyons, who 
regarded cloister as essentially necessary for the stability 
of the religious state among women. St. Francis de Sales, 
on the contrary, wished to unite the duties of Martha and 
Mary: the exterior Avorks of charity with the repose of 
contemplation. Thinking of the human nature of Jesus, 
the former busied herself in preparing for His natural 
wants, while the latter, contemplating the hidden Divinity, 
sat at His feet in an ecstacy of love and adoration. " My 
design," said St. Francis, "has always been to unite these 
two states in so just a proportion, that, instead of destroy- 
ing, they should aid each other ; that one should sus- 
tain the other, and that the Sisters, while laboring for 
their own sanctification, should, at the same time, contri- 
bute to the comfort and salvation of their neighbor. To 

1 Rev. P. Helyot, in his History of Religious Orders, writes the historian of 
our Congregation in Clermont, attributes our foundation to Rev. Father Pierre 
Medaille or Medailhe, who, in 1650, was only fourteen years old. This error, which 
is easily proved by consulting the mortuary registers of the Society of Jesus, is ex- 
plained by the zeal with which this later Father M6daille propagated our Institute 
wherever he exercised his apostolate. He did not create, but he powerfully sus- 
tained the work of his namesake, and to his memory, also, the gratitude of our Con- 
gregation is due.— The Translator. 



50 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

prescribe cloister to them now would be to destroy an es- 
sential part of the Institute; to deprive the neighbor of 
precious aid and good example and the Sisters themselves 
of the merit of those works of mercy so strongly recom- 
mended by the Gospel, and authorized by the example of 
our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. 

Despite the force of this reasoning, the Saint finally 
yielded and cloister was enforced by the Constitutions of 
the Visitation approved by Paul V. in 1618; which led the 
holy Bishop of Geneva to say afterwards, with amiable wit 
and admirable humility: "They call me the founder of 
the Visitation! Could anything be more unreasonable? 
I have done what I did not wish to do and have failed in 
what I wanted to do." 

But the idea of a mind so great, of a Saint so perfect as 
St. Francis de Sales, could have been but the inspiration 
of Heaven, and was not to prove abortive. Consequently, 
we see that, only a few years after his death, there sprang 
up, on all sides, communities of women destined for the 
solace of all human miseries ; uniting prayer and contem- 
plation to the external works of charity, and thus adding 
another jewel to that glorious crown of the religious life, 
which is at once the ornament, the honor, and the strength 
of the Catholic Church. The composition of that essence, 
so strong and yet so delicate, which renders those sublime 
virgins brave as soldiers, tender as mothers, pure as angels, 
with hearts as immense as misery, as strong as love, is a 
secret communicated by Heaven to Catholicity alone, since 
it alone has been able to produce them. 1 

1 We find at the same epoch the secular Sisters of the Society of St. Joseph es- 
tablished at Bordeaux in 1638 ; and the Hospitalises of St. Joseph, founded at La 
F16che in 1642. 

But we must not confound these with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Le Puy, restored 
afterwards in the Sisters of St. Joseph of Lyons, which, in its turn, has been the 
Mother of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Belley, Bordeaux, Chamb6ry, America, etc. - 
The Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny, founded in 1807, are also distinct from the pre- 
ceding. (Life of Mother St. Joseph.) 



The End and Mission of t/ie Institute. 5 1 

But up to that time many holy and learned persons, like 
Mgr. de Marqnemont, were unable to conceive that the 
flower of virginity could be preserved secure and inviolate 
without the safeguards of solitude and the cloister-grate. 
In their opinion, the cloister, with its holy ardors, was, as 
it were, a shelter, a conservatory, necessary to the growth 
of that pure blossom, foreign, indeed, to our cold earth, 
yet transplanted hither from the glowing regions of the 
seraphim. 1 

The founders of the Sisters of St. Joseph, on the con- 
trary, thought, with St. Vincent and St. Francis de Sales, 
that the fear and love of God were infallible antidotes 
against temptations and worldly seductions ; and that, 
wanting this holy love and fear, the closest grates would 
prove but feeble barriers. With St. Augustine they said : 
" Love God, and do what you will." Ama, et fac quod vis. 
For nothing is as strong as love, writes the pious author of 
the Imitation ; and according to the Holy Spirit, it is 
stronger than death. Instead, then, of devoting the new 
Congregations of virgins to a life wholly cloistral, their 
founders threw them boldly into civil and military hos- 
pitals ; sent them as mothers to the bedside of the sick, 
the attics of the poor, into isolated huts and garrets ; on 
far distant missions ; among savages, even to the soldiers' 
camp, " with the city streets and highways for their con- 
vent, obedience for their enclosure, the fear of God for 
their grate, and holy modesty for their veil." 

Such are, literally, the simple precautions pointed out, 

1 The contrary idea terrified Mgr. de Marquemont, a prelate eminently pious, but 
somewhat timorous and opposed to every innovation. Immutable in her dogmas, the 
Church is not so in her discipline and institutions. For the rest, the new religious 
form was not without precedent, as Bellarmine declared when consulted by St. 
Francis de Sales on this subject. 

As to the dreaded inconveniences, the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy, Sis- 
ters of St. Joseph, Little Sisters of the Poor, and a thousand other such Congregations, 
answer it to-day, by shedding abroad over the Church and the world such a perfume 
of virtue as to leave no cause for envying even the most strictly enclosed Orders. 



52 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

the new discipline inaugurated by St. Vincent de Paul for 
his heroic daughters. il I have experienced," says St. 
Francis de Sales, "a, special delight in founding a Congre- 
gation wherein charity alone, and the loving fear of God, 
shall serve as enclosure." 

It would ' seem that these great Saints, and those who 
shared their sentiments, foresaw, from afar, the needs and 
exigencies of our times, " without faith, without God, with- 
out affection," wherein that charity which occupies itself 
with man's corporal wants would alone have power to gain 
his heart and lead him back to religion. 

To such a Avork the patronage of St. Joseph was marvel- 
lously suitable. For our Lord Jesus Christ, in His infinite 
and ineffable goodness, having willed to leave, as His repre- 
sentatives on earth, the afflicted, prisoners, the sick, the hun- 
gry, naked, and homeless poor, declaring with His Divine 
lips that whatever is done unto the least and the last of the 
unfortunate is done unto Himself, it follows that it is He 
whom we tend in the suffering members of humanity. 1 
The poor man is another Jesus Christ hidden beneath those 
rags, and continuing, under that veil which faith alone 
can penetrate, His life of humiliation. 

Should not, then, St. Joseph, who guarded, protected, 
cared for, and clothed the Sacred Humanity of our Saviour, 
become the model and patron of souls who devote them- 
selves to the service of the miserable, raised by the Gospel 
to the dignity of Jesus Chirst ? " They should serve their 
neighbor with the same care, diligence, charity, and love 
with which this glorious Patriarch served his reputed Son, 
Jesus Christ, and the Blessed Mary, his most pure Spouse." 2 
This way of regarding the poor cannot but be an incentive 
to the most sublime works of charity. It explains the 
heroic acts of the Saints who saw Jesus Christ begging 

1 St. Matth. xxv. 35. 2 Rule of the Sisters of St. Joseph. 



The End and Mission of the Institute. 53 

in the poor, suffering in the sick, weeping in the afflicted, 
and captive in the prisoner. ' 

The interior life and manual labor were equally sanctified 
by the Foster-father of Jesus, the Spouse of Mary. It is 
not, then, surprising that the new form which grace de- 
veloped in the religious spirit tended to model itself on 
the life of the glorious Patriarch, to place itself under his 
protection and to assume his name. When God wills 
to sanctify and to save an age, and when His Church needs 
to be glorified and avenged, He exhales a Divine breath, 
and the "face of the earth is renewed." Such a Divine 
breath swept over the world at the time of which we speak. 

At the head of this providential movement were the 
Sisters of St. Joseph of Le Puy, for Mgr. de Maupas, whose 
ambition was to follow in the footsteps of St. Francis de 
Sales, entered eagerly into the project of Rev. Father 
Medaille, to establish a congregation to fill the place left 
vacant by the Sisters of the Visitation when they embraced 
enclosure. 

Acting on the Bishop's suggestion, Rev. Father Medaille 
assembled his spiritual daughters in the house of a pious 
widow, Mme. de Joux, whose hospitable dwelling became a 
veritable ccenaculum, and the cradle of the new Institute. 2 



1 If there exists here below a doctrine which elevates man, it is, most assuredly, 
Christianity, which is only, when defined, the dogma, the law and fact of the deifi- 
cation of creatures. What more calculated to develop human dignity and morality, 
than our communion with the Divinity, V y the Incarnation and the Eucharist so pro- 
longed and multiplied ? 

When the world calls faith an abasement, it is either ignorant, foolish, or lying. 
" Catholicity," says Hutchinson, "has been the belief of the most powerful and en- 
lightened European nations, and of the most illustrious personages that have ever 
honored the name of man. 1 ' 

2 It was then that our founders set about drawing up rules that should assure the 
stability of the new Society. These were prayerfully elaborated, and decided upon 
little by little ; the foundation being those first writenby St. Francis de Sales for the 
Visitation, and which Mgr. de Maupas called the best guarantees for the future of 
the new Institute. Rev. Father Medaille added thereto some regulations of St. Ig- 
Datius, especially in regard to the vows, which were to impose the same obligation 
as the simple vows pronounced at the end of the novitiate in the Society of Jesus. 



54 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontboune. 

This truly Christian lady constituted herself the Sisters' 
adoptive mother ; and until her death ceased not to labor 
with all her strength, and contribute, to the best of her 
power, towards the establishment and development of the 
new-born Congregation. No work is more difficult, non? 
costs more labor and toil, or more maternal care, than the 
foundation of a religious Order. 

During the first days of this spiritual birth, Eev. Father 
Medaille wrote to one of his cherished daughters 1 a letter, 
in which, speaking of the spirit that ought to animate the 
new Congregation, which he calls c ' his little design," as 
St. Francis de Sales called the Visitation his " little In- 
stitute," 2 — he gives it as its model the poverty, purity, 
obedience, humility, and charity of our Lord Jesus Christ 
in the Sacrament of the Altar. 

" God," he writes, " has, if I do not deceive myself, re- 
vealed tome, in the Holy Eucharist, a perfect Model of our 
little design. Jesus is wholly annihilated therein. We 
also, my dear child, must labor to establish an annihilated 
Institute. It must be nothing in the eyes of the world ; and, 
before God, it will be whatever He, in His infinite mercy, 
will deign to make it. It must be lowly and hidden, like 
Jesus Christ in the Most Adorable Eucharist, wherein He 
is so concealed as to be wholly invisible. my God ! how 
blessed will be our Institute, if it maintain this spirit of 
lowliness, humility, annihilation, and a life hidden from 
the world and even from its own eyes ! What comparison 

To these fundamental principles the founders added some personal ideas, which 
we might better call the breathings of the Divine Spirit, so great are the piety, 
strength, and supernatural wisdom which they exhale. (Hist, of the Cong- of St. 
Joseph in Clermont-Ferrand.) 

Through the providence of God, the original MSS. of this Rule, written by Father 
MSdaille's own hand, and by him given to our first Mothers, was saved from the 
general destruction of the archives in 1793, and is still preserved with religious ven- 
eration in the Mother- House of Le Puy. (Annals of the Cong, of Le Puy.) 

1 Doubtless to her whom he had appointed to govern the Sisters. 

2 St. Jane Frances called it "a little March violet, having no brilliancy of color." 



Father Mcdailles Instructions. 55 

can there be between our nothingness and the annihilation 
of onr Saviour-God in His Divine Sacrament ! 

' ' In It we have a perfect Model of poverty, chastity, and 
obedience. In the eyes of the world, what so poor as the 
species under which the great God conceals Himself ; not 
even the reality of bread, only its form and appearance ! 
What detachment does He not show in things devoted to 
his use ? The altar and its ornaments, the tabernacle, 
sacred vessels, and all that surrounds Him in the Sacra- 
ment of His love, may be rich or poor, it matters not ; 
whether given Him or taken from Him He makes no re- 
sistance ; He is equally content when stripped of all. In 
our poverty, we, likewise, should be so stripped, so de- 
spoiled of all that we have consecrated to God and the 
foundation of our little design, or to be equally content to 
have much, to have little, or to have nothing ; for our 
little design requires perfect detachment. 

" As to chastity and purity, in this mystery our beloved 
Saviour, the Virgin-Spouse of virgins, has eyes and heart 
for souls alone. In it there is no exercise of the senses : 
everything tends to purity and the purification of hearts. 
Ah, should not we be happy if the same were true of us ? 
If we had neither eyes, ears, tongue, nor heart save for this 
dear Saviour ; and if every exercise of our senses tended to 
purity and the sanctification of souls ? This, with the help 
of God, will be the chastity of our little Institute. 

" But is not the holy obedience of this Divine Saviour 
truly miraculous ? Has He ever had a thought or uttered 
a word contrary to the will of the priest, a weak and often 
sinful man, who handles Him, and carries Him whitherso- 
ever he wishes ? Has He ever refused to descend, when 
the priest so willed, into our hearts so wretched and so 
poorly prepared ? Ah, this reflection would melt my 
heart, were it not as hard as marble. Let us never lose 
sight, my dear daughter, of the marvellous perfection of 



56 Life of Rev. Mother St. Jo Jut Fontbonne. 

this Divine obedience. May the Divine Goodness grant that 
ours may wholly resemble it, since we are members of an 
Institute of annihilation. May we never have a thought, a 
feeling, a word, contrary, in the slightest degree, to obe- 
dience. Let us, in imitation of our dear Saviour, obey as 
children, without reasoning or troubling ourselves about 
anything ; letting ourselves be guided by Divine Provi- 
dence as a tender Father who knows what is necessary to 
us, and who, after all, absolutely governs His creatures 
lovingly annihilated in His bosom, such as should be, es- 
pecially, the souls composing our little design. 

cherished and most humble obedience, the certain 
mark of solid virtue ! Would that thou mightst be ever 
truly perfect in the members of our new religious body, 
if, indeed, I may call it such, since, truly, it seems to me it 
is only the shadow and not the reality of a body, so great 
should be its spirit of annihilation. 

" And if we desire a Model of love for God and charity 
to our neighbor, where shall we find a better one than in the 
Adorable Sacrament ? This mystery is ' the Love of loves; ' 
for it reveals the extent, the perfection, the duration, the 
immutability, the grandeur of holy love. Our cherished 
Congregation, — each of whose members should always have 
the plenitude of holy love in her heart, — professes to be a 
Congregation of most perfect love ; it will find herein 
enough for imitation. Moreover, this sacrament is a 
mystery of perfect union. It unites creatures with God^ 
and by the title of Communion which its bears, unites the 
faithful among themselves by a common bond, of which our 
Lord speaks in such ravishing terms, when He prays His 
Father that the faithful 'may be one,' that they may be 
consummated in one, as the Father and He are but one. 

' e Behold, my dear Sister, the end of our Congregation of 
annihilation ! It tends to procure this double union, en- 
tire, of ourselves and our dear neighbors with God ; of 



Father Me dailies Instructions. 57 

ourselves with our neighbor in general, and our neighbor 
with us, but all in Jesus and in God His Father. 

" May the Divine Goodness deign to show us the excel- 
lence of this end, and assist us in becoming fit instruments 
to succeed therein. I have called this union entire, be- 
cause the word expresses all the perfections comprised 
in the nature and exercise of the love of God and our dear 
neighbor. God grant we may be able to contribute, as 
feeble instruments, in re-establishing in the Church this 
entire union of souls in God and with God. 

" Finally, our dear Institute ought to be all humility ; 
it should love and choose what is most humble in every- 
thing. It must be all modesty and sweetness, all candor 
and simplicity, wholly interior, in a word, void of self and 
all created things, and replenished with Jesus and God, by 
a plenitude which I am unable to explain, but which the 
Divine Goodness will make you comprehend. Are not all 
these virtues found in a most wonderful degree in the 
Blessed Eucharist ? What more humble than our Divine 
Saviour in this mystery ? What more modest, more be- 
nign and gentle, more simple and sincere, more replen- 
ished with God and void of all things else ? Behold, my 
dear Sister, the Model of our Institute! 

" It seems to me that herein we shall also find its charac- 
ter and employments. In food and clothing our Sisters 
should observe great modesty and frugality, accommodated, 
however, to diversity of circumstances. This, again, may 
be noticed in the species of the Blessed Sacrament, 
which, although everywhere alike, yet present differences 
in taste and color, according to the diversity of quality in 
the bread and wine. 

" Our houses should, like the tabernacle, be always 
locked ; and our Sisters, in imitation of Jesus Christ, 
should leave them only through obedience or charity, re- 
turning, as soon as may be, to their different employments, 



58 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

"As our dear Saviour in the Holy Eucharist lives not for 
Himself, but entirely for God His Father and the souls re- 
deemed by His precious blood, so, my dear Sister, must 
our little design, and those who compose it, live not for self, 
but be wholly lost and annihilated in God and for God ; 
be everything for the dear neighbor, nothing for self. 
Deign, my God, to operate these marvels, according to 
Thy good pleasure. Amen." 

Such were the instructions which the pious and lowly fam- 
ily of the Sisters of St. Joseph received at its very beginning. 
They express the character, and delightfully breathe the 
spirit of their Father ; they reveal the virtues that shone in 
his first home of Nazareth : humility, simplicit} 7 , poverty, 
a life hidden in God, purity, obedience, the sweetest union, 
and the most exquisite charity. At Nazareth, the source 
and model of these virtues was the mystery of the Incarna- 
tion there operated : the Holy Eucharist, which is a con- 
tinuation of the same, should likewise produce them in the 
bosom of St. Joseph's new family. Emulating the example 
of their Father, the Sisters should keep the abasement of 
Jesus ever before the eyes of their soul ; and as St. Joseph 
was inspired and actuated by the annihilation of the In- 
carnation, so should they be instructed and animated by the 
humiliation of their Eucharistic God. For the Saint and 
his children there is the same Exemplar, Jesus our Lord, 
the Son of God, lowly, humble, and concealed. 

What an honor, but, yet more, what an obligation does 
this blessed similarity impose upon the Institute of St. Jos- 
eph, which, like its Patron and Father, should be as ex- 
alted in contemplation as it is elevated in love and abased 
in humility ! 

The first years of a religious Order are like the first days 
of the novitiate. There is about them the freshness, the 
glow, the buoyancy, the elan of love in youth : something 
undefinable, yet ever reminding us of the ravishing and 



Authorization of the Congregation. 59 

inimitable glory of the dawn. And, at the same time, 
how little, how lowly, how unperceived, for, to use the 
expression of de Maistre, " Nothing great has had a 
great beginning." " If you wish to be great, begin by be- 
ing lowly," writes the great Doctor of Hippo. 

On the 15th of October, 1650, the Feast of St. Teresa, 
the Bishop assembled the little community in the Orphan 
Asylum of Le Puy, which he confided to their care. 1 After 
having addressed them in words fall of the spirit of God, 
he solemnly invested them with the religious habit, and 
gave them rules for the direction of their life. He con- 
cluded the pious ceremony by placing the humble Institute 
under the protection of the glorious St. Joseph, declaring 
that it should be known thenceforth as the Congregation 
of the Sisters of St. Joseph. A short time afterwards he 
confided to them the Asylum of Montferrand also ; and, 
being daily more edified by their zeal and charity, he, by 
an episcopal ordinance of March 10, 1651, solemnly and 
formally authorized the new congregation. 2 

Not content with this authorization, Mgr. de Maupas 
strove to obtain for the new Institute the favor and pro- 
tection of his colleagues. " The bishops," 3 he says, " are 
most humbly entreated to have for this Congregation a 
paternal charity, and special care for its maintenance and 
advancement, in consideration of the great St. Francis 

1 Rev. Father MSdaille, himself so perfect an observer of rules, and so well versed 
in the conduct of souls, had charged himself with the training necessary to prepare 
his spiritual daughters for their new life. With such a Master of Novices, and under 
the vivifying action of the Holy Spirit, they advanced with rapid strides in the way 
of perfection. After some months of silent and energetic formation, Father Medaille 
decided to open the door of the cmnaculum and close a retreat which superabundance 
of grace and generous fidelity had rendered fruitful, by presenting his spiritual chil- 
dren to the Bishop of Puy, that they might receive at his hands the religious habit. 
(Extract from the History of the Congregation of St. Joseph in Clermont.) 

2 The almost complete destruction, duriug the French Revolution, of the Records 
of the Congregation of Le Puy, was an irreparable loss to the Sisters of St. Joseph, 
depriving them, as it did, of those traditions dearest to every religious Order,— those 
relating to the first members, their early struggles and difficulties, 

:i See the Constitutions of tb§ Sisters of St, Joseph, 



60 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

de Sales, whose spirit and views in the institution of 
the Sisters of the Visitation it is the ohject of this Con- 
gregation to perpetuate." l 

This holy and venerable prelate having, in 16G1, been 
translated to the see of Evreux, Mgr. Armand de Bethune 
continued his good work, and lavished the most paternal 
care on his Institute, which he reconfirmed by an ordinance 
of September 23, 1665. One year later the civil power 
lent its aid to the increase of a society so useful to the 
public weal, and Louis XIV., by letters patent, authorized 
and confirmed, in 1666, the first establishments of Le Puy, 
Saint-Diclier, and other places in Velay. 

Thus, loved and blessed by both God and man, the 
modest Institute of St. Joseph spread rapidly, like the 
grain of mustard -seed. When scarcely fifteen years in ex- 
istence, its beneficent branches overshadowed not only the 
diocese of Le Puy, but those of Clermont, Viviers, Uses, 
and others. " Everywhere/' says the Dictionnaire Uni- 
verse!, "the Sisters of St. Joseph are engaged most success- 
fully in the instruction of children of their own sex, in the 
care of the sick, and in procuring for the neighbor all the 
spiritual and temporal helps of which they are capable." 

In 1668, Henry de Villars, Archbishop of Vienne, estab- 
lished them in the great Hotel Dieu of his archiepiscopal 
see ; and, by a pastoral letter of September 2d of the same 
year, recommended them to his whole diocese. 

Lyons, the City of Mary, could not but lovingly adopt 



1 In his Preface to the Life of St. Francis de Sales, written by Mgr. de Maupas in 
1659, he says : " For more than twenty- five years that I have been engaged in pub- 
lic offices, I, despite my unworthiness, have been brought into close communication 
with very many religious Orders. I respect, I honor them ; my heart has been pro- 
foundly moved by their holy practices, yet, I must confess, I have found in the Visi- 
tation I know not what of blessed predilection for the exact observance of the 
holiest laws of humility and charity. It. is on this account that, without in the least 
failing in the esteem I owe to others, I have decided to institute the humble Con- 
gregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph on the model and in the same spirit as the Sis- 
ters of the Visitation, before they adopted enclosure." 



Increase of the Institute. 6 1 

the Daughters of St. Joseph. To them she confided the 
greater part of her charitable works, and the alleviation 
of the numerous miseries that groaned within her vast 
bosom. The education of children ; the instruction of 
deaf-mutes; solace of the poor ; care of incurables and sick 
of all kinds ; attendance in the prisons ; charge of a House 
of Correction in the Rue Saint-Jacques, a Place of Deten- 
tion at Perrache, and the great Hospital in Saint-Nizier ; — 
such were, up to the Revolution of 1798, the works, at once 
humble and grand, patient and generous, heroically accom- 
plished by the Sisters of St. Joseph. In the ardor of 
charity, in sublime self-devotion, they rivalled the dear 
and heroic daughters of St. Vincent de Paul. 

We have seen the Institute of St. Joseph in its origin 
and its early years. Not in vain did it bear the name of 
Joseph, for its increase was truly wonderful. 

When, before being gathered to his fathers, the Patriarch 
Jacob blessed his children, to Joseph, his best-beloved, 
lie said : ' - Joseph is a growing son, a growing son and 
comely to behold. The God of thy Father shall be 
thy helper, and the Almighty shall bless thee with the 
blessings of Heaven above." This prophetic blessing had 
been merited by Joseph's innocence and purity, as well as 
by that generosity which made him the saviour of his 
brethren. By the like sanctity and charitable devotion 
did the new Institute merit to share in the same blessing. 

With the glorious name of St. Joseph, it possesses two 
other privileges very dear to its heart : the right to claim 
St. Vincent as the friend and director of its founder, and 
the inappreciable advantage of having realized the ardent 
desire of St. Francis de Sales ; for the Institute of St. Jos- 
eph was, so to speak, the first flower of the mind of that 
great prelate, the spontaneous fruit of his heart. 

Have we not heard the Bishop of Le Puy presenting his 
dear Congregation of St. Joseph to the other, bishops of 



62 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontboimc. 

France as having been established to perpetuate the spirit 
of the first Institution of the blessed Bishop of Geneva ? 
In the first Chapter of the Constitutions we find the 
following recommendation : " The Sisters of St. Joseph 
shall endeavor, in their entire conduct, to imitate the cus- 
toms, spirit, and life of the Sisters of the Visitation 
founded by St. Francis de Sales. They shall always enter- 
tain the most sincere veneration for the founder of that 
religious Order, and shall do all in their power to acquire 
the spirit with which he inspired that Order in its institu- 
tion." 

The Constitutions, throughout, tend to lead the new In- 
stitute to a triple end : the sanctification of its members 
by prayer and union with God, the Apostolate by teach- 
ing, 1 and charity to the neighbor by external works. It 
is the sweet and ardent spirit of St. Teresa, fused with the 
apostolic zeal of St. Ignatius, and the charitable spirit of 
St. Vincent de Paul, who said to his daughters : " My 
intention is that you should treat the sick and infirm as a 
tender mother cares for her only son." Thus the Institute, 
as we have already said, embraced both labor and evangel- 
ical perfection in their full plenitude. 

The Constitutions, at first in manuscript, were, in 1693, 
printed by order of Mgr. de Villars, Archbishop of Vienne ; 
and in 1729, a second edition, issued at Lyons, was ap- 
proved by Mgr. de Neuville de Villeroy, Archbishop of 
that city. 

The costume then worn by the Sisters was a dress of 
coarse stuff, like a long tunic, plaited in at the waist by a 
wide cincture, which, being carried to the back, hung down 
like the ends of a basque. Around the neck was a large 

1 In modern times, female education lias become more and more a social necessity, 
and the greatest benefit religious communities can confer. The solace of human 
miseries is but secondary, for the reason, so little understood in our days, that all 
that tends to the health of the soul is to be greatly preferred to that which relates 
to bodily comfort 



The Institute be/ore the Revolution. 6 



3 



white handkerchief, afterwards replaced by the guimpe. 
Their head-dress, — that used by widows of the time, — re- 
sembled the present coiffure of the Sisters, to which they 
added a hood or bonnet of black silk, called a calhche, like 
that now adopted by the Tertiaries of Instruction of Le 
Puy. When they went abroad, they wore a scarf about 
two and a half yards long, which, being thrown over the 
head and shoulders, was then knotted on the breast. 
Their distinctive sign was a small brass crucifix, which 
hung upon the breast. 

Up to the Revolution of 1789, the Institute of St. Jos- 
eph, following that law of progress which its name sym- 
bolizes, increased and diffused itself in a wonderful man- 
ner, without, however, having any common administration. 
Like the monasteries of the Visitation, each house was 
complete, distinct, and independent, recognizing as its 
first Superior the bishop of the diocese in which it was 
located. The bishop usually named a Spiritual Father, who 
exercised jurisdiction as his vicar over one or several 
houses ; he also appointed a place for the novitiate, and 
had the power of transferring Sisters from one establish- 
ment to another. The communities were, to use the simile 
of St. Francis de Sales, as so many distinct hives, each 
having its queen or mother, but all influenced by the same 
spirit, having perfect resemblance in life and action ; sub- 
ject, in a word, to the same Rule, and thus presenting a 
beautiful picture of unity in variety. 

" Our daughters," wrote St. Francis to St. Jane de 
Chantal, " are the daughters of the clergy of each diocese, 
and the clergy form the first Order of religion." 

These hives — to continue the simile — swarmed from time 
to time and sent forth new colonies out of their super- 
abundance, which in their turn became the parents of new 
foundations. 

Of the spiritual hives of St. Joseph existing at the time 



64 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne. 

of which we write, one of the most edifying and flourish- 
ing was that of Monistrol, in the Department of Haute- 
Loire. In the designs of Providence, the Superior of that 
little community was the Nehemias who was to reconstruct, 
or, rather, re-found the second Congregation of St. Joseph 
on the ruins of the first. As Nehemias, after the destruc- 
tion of the Holy City, placed the sacred fire in a cistern where 
it was extinguished in the slime, so, during the revolution- 
ary tempest which destroyed the religious houses of France, 
the spirit of the Congregation of St. Joseph was to be hidden 
in the heart of the Superior of Monistrol, not indeed to 
become extinct, but to shine forth pure and resplendent 
when God should arise and bid the waves " Be still ! " 

She of whom we speak was the Rev. Mother St. John, 
a soul at once grand and simple, prudent and gen- 
tle ; a soul whom God, according to the sacred simile, had 
fashioned like unto a strong and solid ship that should 
bear its precious cargo, safe and untouched, through its 
voyage over a rough and tempestuous ocean. 




CHAPTER II. 

Sanctity of Jeanne Fontbonne's Family. — Her childhood and edu- 
cation. — She and her sister Marguerite are placed at the board- 
ing-school of the Sisters of St. Joseph at Le Puy. 

EANNE FONTBONNE— known later in life as 
Rev. Mother Saint John, Foundress and Supe- 
rior-general of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Lyons 
— came into the world on the 3d of March, 1759, at Bas- 
en-Basset, a little town of Velay. She was the youngest 
child of Michael Fontbonne and Jeanne Theillere, a couple 
as remarkable for the depth of their Christian faith as for 
their true and solid piety. God blessed them with four 
daughters and one son, who, responding to the care lav- 
ished ou them, fulfilled in after life the words of the Holy 
Spirit : " Train up a child in the way in which he should 
go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Cath- 
erine, the eldest daughter, died a short time after her 
marriage and previous to the Revolution, leaving to her 
native place the remembrance and example of all those 
virtues that constitute a truly Christian matron. Her death 
was a sensible blow to all her relatives, but every one 
remarked the depth of grief evinced by little Jeanne, whose 
tender and sensitive heart preserved, throughout life, the 
remembrance of this beloved sister, who was, as it were, 
the first fruit rendered to God from a blest parental tree. 

A second daughter married M. Teissier, a most edifying 
Christian, and in her family was renewed the lively faith 
and profound piety that had blessed the paternal hearth. 
After the death of their only son, the pious couple devoted 



66 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

themselves wholly to the practice of their religion, conse- 
crating their wealth to the promotion of charitable works, 
especially those under the charge of the Sisters of St. 
Joseph, after that Congregation had been restored by their 
sister, Mother St. John. 

Claude Fontbonne, the only son, inheritor not only of 
the name but the virtue of his parents, having married 
Mile. Marie Plainay, of one of the most honorable families 
of Bas, there remained at home only Marguerite and 
Jeanne, the two youngest children, in whom were centred 
all the hopes and wishes of their fond parents, of whose 
declining years they seemed destined to be the support and 
consolation. Most carefully, then, did they endeavor to 
cultivate those precious blossoms, all unconscious, mean- 
while, that God was but moulding them to His designs ; 
that He had in reserve for their children, Jeanne, especially, 
one of those extraordinary vocations by which a soul is 
destined to become the light and ornament, not of one 
hearth alone, but of the Church itself, by enriching her 
with a new spiritual family, a religious Congregation des- 
tined to give legions of virtuous souls to earth and Saints 
to Heaven — a vocation similar to that of St. Clare, St. 
Teresa, St. Jane F. de Chantal, and, in our own times, of 
Mother Emilie, Foundress of the Sisters of the Holy Fam- 
ily, and Ven. Mme. Barat, Foundress of the Ladies of the 
Sacred Heart. Of such grand souls, mothers of a glorious 
and immortal progeny, has the Holy Spirit declared that 
i( they are the most beautiful of the daughters of Israel." 

Led, then, by Divine inspiration, the parents instilled 
into the tender hearts of their children the most sublime 
lessons of virtue, instructed them with special care on the 
principles of the Catholic faith, and inspired them with 
sentiments of profound respect for the ministers of God, 
and all that pertained to Divine worship. 

We are accustomed to say that something seems lacking 



Her Childhood and Education. 67 

to children who have not been reared under maternal care : 
they remind us of plants deprived of necessary sunlight. 
In this respect Marguerite and Jeanne had nothing to de- 
sire, for their holy mother made them her companions in 
prayer and works of piety. In her company they attended 
the Church Offices, and, by her example, became so perme- 
ated with the spirit of faith, as to make it, according to 
the words of Scripture, the mainspring of their life and 
actions. Jeanne's soul seemed to respond almost natur- 
ally to the influence of grace. Wise and thoughtful be- 
yond her years, her questions, remarks, and conversation 
often revealed germs, as rich as premature, of the beautiful 
qualities that were to adorn her later life. The noble 
Christian, the valiant woman, the saintly religious, — all 
were revealed in that child of benediction ; and the blos- 
som of her early youth gave promise of richest fruit in its 
maturity. The childhood of every life, says Mgr. Dupan- 
loup, is the flower giving promise of the fruit. " It is true 
that every flower, " continues he, ''does not bring forth 
fruit, but, incontestably, if there are no flowers, there will 
be no fruit, and lives the most prolific of good have always 
had a promising springtime. " 

Xow the springtime of Jeanne's youth was so beautiful, 
that her relatives and friends, delighted at the character- 
istics revealed in her, often quoted the words of the Gos- 
pel regarding the great Saint whose name she bore : 
" What an one, think ye, shall this child be ? " Q ids put as 
puer iste eriif 

A man of the world, more remarkable for statesmanship 
than for virtue, has said : " The presence of a holy 
maiden purifies, sanctifies the place wherein she dwells, and 
her innocence excites either to virtue or self-condemna- 
tion those who come in contact with her." 

Stronger still is the power of virtue and innocence, when 
with it we find the seal of Divino election, marking the 



68 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

soul for higher things. Hence, whether at home or 
abroad, with kinsfolk or with strangers, Jeanne possessed 
great ascendency over others, and won for herself extraor- 
dinary esteem. Her sister Marguerite, especially, looked 
up to her with the deferential affection usually accorded to 
the older sister, nor could she bear separation from her. 
Always together in their childish amusements, or more fre- 
quently still, kneeling before the statue of our Lady on 
the little altar they so delighted to arrange, it seemed as 
if their souls, like those of David and Jonathan, were knit 
together ; even the ]3i*ison or chains could not part them, 
death alone had the power. It might be said that they 
were twin blossoms on one stem, mingling their per- 
fume, or, more justly, two bodies animated by the same 
soul. Piety does not exclude tenderness ; grand and 
holy souls are always possessed of tender feeling ; and if 
St. Teresa calls the spirit of evil "The one who cannot 
love," may not we also say that a Saint is "one who 
loves " ? 

When old enough to attend school, the two girls were 
confided to the care of the Sisters of St. Joseph at Bas, 
which communitv was under the direction of two of M. 
Fontbonne's sisters, — Mother St. Francis, Superior, and 
Sister M. of the Visitation, Mistress of Novices. We can 
readily understand with what an affectionate welcome 
they received their little nieces, of whom their father 
said : " It has been my most earnest wish to confide them 
to you, that you may make them like yourselves. They 
have a great attraction for prayer, and we have never 
had to urge them to that duty. Our most ardent desire 
is to see their naturally good qualities improved and 
developed." Loving their relatives in God and for 
God, the aunts' first care was to encourage the virtuous 
dispositions of the children, who, on their part, endeav- 
ored to obey them as Jesus obeyed Mary and Joseph 



Her First Communion. 69 

in Nazareth. Marguerite entered, almost immediately, 
on her preparation for her First Communion with the 
greatest joy and fervor ; and when, on one occasion 
during the instruction, Mother St. Francis endeavored 
to impress her with the thought that she could never 
become worthy enough to receive our Lord, she burst into 
a flood of tears. Then her little sister began to console and 
encourage her, saying : "Ah, what would not /give to be 
in your place ! But I too, ere long, shall share your hap- 
piness." When, in truth, her own time came, Jeanne 
seemed, in her fervor, to be more like an angel than an in- 
habitant of earth ; and she would lovingly exclaim : 
" Oh ! when shall I receive Him whom I love ? How I 
would wish to die when He enters my heart, so as never 
more to lose Him ! " 

When the long-looked-for day arrived, Jeanne, accom- 
panied by all her family, approached the Holy Table with 
such awe and reverence, that she seemed like a little angel 
prostrate before the face of her God. Dead to earthly 
sights and sounds, she saw only the Altar and her Beloved ; 
the Sacramental Presence of her God brought Heaven into 
her heart, and, inundated with grace, she hesitated not to 
devote herself body and soul to the promotion of His honor 
and glory. Thenceforth the sisters " advanced in wisdom 
and age, and grace before God and man," and their lives 
revealed daily the all-powerful influence of grace. 

To Jeanne's solid virtue and good qualities was united a 
singular attractiveness, so that her elder sisters and brother 
strove with their parents for her society. Cheerful and 
joyous in temperament, she was the soul of her class exer- 
cises and enjoyments, and such was her influence that her 
companions used to make her the referee of their little dis- 
putes, and it was a common saying among them : " Let us 
tell Jeanne about it ; she will settle everything." 

After some time, their parents sent the girls to complete 



/O Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonnc. 

their education at the Pensionnat of the Sisters of St. 
Joseph at Le Puy, in which were brought up the children 
of the principal families of Velay. Amiable, obedient, and 
industrious as at Bas, the young girls soon won the affec- 
tion of their teachers and companions, and long after their 
departure, they were remembered as models of regularity 
and perfect deportment. 

Jeanne's superiority in intellect and virtue, and that 
rare good sense which seemed her dominant characteris- 
tic, exerted at Le Puy, as at Bas, an indescribable charm. 
Thus did that little plant gather around it many innocent 
doves, who in later years were to find safety and shelter 
in its beneficent shade ; in other words, the companion so 
loved in youth had the happiness of welcoming many of 
them in after years, as their Mother, in the Congregation 
of St. Joseph. 



CHAPTER III. 

Marguerite and Jeanne return to their family. — Their attraction to 
the religious life. — Ceremony at the Convent. — Bishop de Gal- 
lard predicts that Jeanne is to become the light and glory of the 
Congregation of St. Joseph. — The sisters enter the Novitiate at 
Monistrol. — Their reception to the habit. — Sister St. John's 
devotedness. — She is appointed Superior, 




HEIR education completed, the young girls re- 
turned to the bosom of their family, and such 
was their holy and edifying demeanor, that it was 
remarked by the entire parish, for the just, says the 
Holy Spirit, bloom like the lily and shed a heavenly per- 
fume all around them. 

Rising early in the morning, the pious girls assisted at 
the Holy Sacrifice, and then, returning home, tried to 
share and lighten the burden of their mother's household 
duties. As soon, however, as these had been completed, 
they used to beg permission to go to the convent, to pray 
with the Sisters and to hear the spiritual lecture. " It is the 
Sisters' hour for prayer, mamma," Jeanne would say coax- 
ingly. " Let us go and join our aunts, for you know, 
mamma, the more numerous we are, the more likely we 
shall be to gain our petitions. There we can pray for you 
more effectually to God and His Blessed Mother." And 
in these words Jeanne did but repeat the idea of the great- 
est Doctors of the Church. "What one cannot obtain in 
prayer/' says St. John Chrysostom, " may be won by the 
prayers of many." "When prayers said in common, 
blending together in unison, ascend to Heaven, it is im- 



J2 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

possible that they remain unanswered," says St. Thomas. 
" Where two or three are gathered together in my name," 
says our Lord, "there am I in the midst of them." 

Smiling at the little artifices of her children, the happy 
mother would grant their request with a tender embrace. 

At the convent they met with an affectionate welcome, 
and when, as is the custom among the Sisters of St. Joseph, 
at the termination of the lecture, all present were required 
to make some reflections on the subject, Mother St. Francis 
used to question her nieces and lead them to express their 
ideas simply and candidly. Their wise and enlightened 
reflections often astonished the Sisters, and of Jeanne, 
in particular, they felt that the Spirit of Wisdom dwelt in 
her soul. 

As, at that time, each community of the Sisters of St. 
Joseph received and trained its own subjects, the cere- 
monies of reception and profession were sometimes held 
at Bas, on which occasions Marguerite and Jeanne never 
failed to be present. Since their return from Le Puy 
each had felt herself called to the religious life, and had 
revealed her secret to the other. Eager to draw the bless- 
ing of God on their first inspiration, they agreed to make 
trial in the world of the life of the Sisters of St. Joseph : 
to obey their parents and relatives as fervent novices ; to 
practice self-renunciation, humility, and poverty as far as 
practicable, and perform the visitation of the sick and 
poor in the company of their mother. The love of God 
thus filling their hearts left room for no other love, and 
their angelic purity and modesty avoided everything that 
could interfere with it. 

Afraid to speak of their vocation to their parents, know- 
ing the anguish it would cause them, they desired to make 
Mother St. Francis the confidante of their hopes and as- 
pirations. She heard the news with great but secret joy, 
and, to try their resolution, drew an unattractive picture of 



Her Attraction to the Religious Life. 73 

the religious life ; representing it as beyond their feeble 
virtue,, she urged them to pray, to reflect, to try them- 
selves seriously, and to distrust the imagination, which of- 
ten leads the young astray in even their best intentions. 

After leaving the convent, they entered the church, 
where, prostrate before our Lord, they implored Him. to 
enlighten them, and open some way for their entrance in- 
to religion, if such were His holy will. Consoled and 
strengthened they left the church, and Jeanne said : "We 
are not good enough to be religious, Marguerite ; that is 
why my aunt spoke as she did. Let us agree to redouble 
our pious exercises, our fervor and submission, in order to 
merit so great a grace. When I do wrong, you must re- 
mind me ; and if you forget, I will do you the like ser- 
vice." God, who loves the simple-hearted, could not but 
respond to their holy endeavors. 

Mother St. Francis, in the meantime, had imparted the 
news to Sister M. of the Visitation, to whom God had 
given special graces for the discernment of religious vo- 
cations. " Mother," answered she, "that does not sur- 
prise me. I have very closely watched our nieces, and 
have been fully persuaded that the grace of God is acting 
sensibly in their souls. We have every reason to hope that 
the Divine Master calls them to His service. But who is 
to break the news to their parents ? They are becoming 
old , they have only these two girls. They will never give 
them up; Jeanne, especially, who is so inexpressibly dear to 
them." It would seem, nevertheless, that the parents 
were not wholly ignorant of what was passing in their 
children's souls, for Mme. Fontbonne had, but a short 
time previous, said to her husband : "If God were to de- 
mand the sacrifice of either of these girls, we should have 
to be resigned. He is the Master ; His claim is greater 
than ours. But/' she added, " I pray with all my heart 
He will not choose our darling Jeanne." Little did the 



74 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbo7me. 

tender mother dream that He was about to demand a dou- 
ble sacrifice ; to exact the return of the sacred deposit she 
had so admirably guarded ; to cull from the home-parterre 
those tenderly-nurtured blossoms which He alone could 
bring to perfection. The Divine election, through which 
their little Jeanne was to become the future restorer of her 
Congregation, demanded means of spiritual culture differ- 
ent from those available to her holy and excellent mother. 

Mother St. Francis and her sister continued, meanwhile, 
to observe their nieces more closely, and lost no opportunity 
of putting their virtue to the test. Far from representing 
the religious life as agreeable or holily advantageous, they 
always held up its difficulties, sacrifices, renunciations, and 
asperities ; and in their intercourse with the young girls 
became grave, not to say severe. Far from being disheart- 
ened, the young aspirants did but redouble their fervor, 
humility, and sweetness ; they frequented the convent with 
ever-increasing attraction, and left it but with regret. 

On the 19th of March, the Feast of St. Joseph, a reception 
and profession of more than ordinary solemnity and edi- 
fication were held at the convent, at which Marguerite and 
Jeanne were present. Mgr. de Gallard, Bishop of Le Puy, 
who presided at the ceremony, was struck by their piety and 
modest recollection, and on leaving the chapel asked Mother 
St. Francis who those " two angels" were. The Superior 
replied that they "were her nieces, whereupon the Bishop 
added : "They, also, will become religious." Delighted 
at this confirmation of her hopes, she said: "Such, in- 
deed, is their ardent desire." The Bishop expressed a 
wish to see and converse with them, and, after the inter- 
view, assured their aunt that he "was charmed with their 
excellent dispositions. Speaking of Jeanne, in particular, 
he said : " Train that child most carefully, for she is des- 
tined to be, one day, the light and glory of your Congre- 
gation." We can imagine with what joy the aunts thus 



A Pious Prediction. 75 

heard from the mouth of so holy a prelate a confirmation 
of the favorable judgment they themselves had already 
formed. Thus was the Divine call continually revealing 
itself with that progress and perfection which character- 
izes the works of God, who, according to the Prophet, 
"ordereth all things mightily and sweetly ;'"' fortiter sua- 
oiterque disponit omnia. " But the God of all grace/'' 
writes St. Peter/ "who hath called us unto His eternal 
glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little, will 
Himself perfect you, and confirm you, and establish you.'' 
The first step towards the accomplishment of this vocation 
we are now about to see revealed under the dispensations of 
Divine Providence. 

Mgr. de Gallard had not visited Bas merely to preside 
at a religious ceremony, but to reveal to Mother St. Fran- 
cis his intention to found at Monistrol, a little town in 
Haute-Loire, where he usually resided during the vaca- 
tions, a community of the Sisters of St. Joseph, for whose 
Superior he had chosen Mother St. Francis, thoroughly 
convinced of the good that could be there effected among 
the young by Sisters imbued with her truly religious 
spirit. 

He begged her to set out for Monistrol as soon as possi- 
ble, promising, however, in response to the earnest prayers 
of her community, who were inconsolable at the loss of 
such a Mother, that she might return to them as soon as 
the new establishment should be fully organized. 

When about to take his leave, Mgr. de Gallard said to 
Mother St. Francis: 

"I wish you to bring with you some of your holy daugh- 
ters from here, and your two nieces also, who will become 
religious in the community of Monistrol. There also you 
will find some good subjects, so that a novitiate can be 

1 I. Pet. t. 10. 



7 6 Life of Rev Mother St. Jo Jin Font bonne. 

opened at once. I will always be the father and protector 
of that house." 

Then blessing and consoling the Sisters in the most 
paternal manner, the Bishop departed, greatly edified by 
their truly fervent spirit. 

Mother St. Francis, like a good religious, set herself 
immediately to accomplish the will of him who was at 
once her Superior and the Angel of the Diocese. The most 
difficult part, however, was to take her nieces with her; nor 
could she bring herself to ask of their parents so great a 
sacrifice. Jeanne, herself, with supernatural courage, un- 
dertook the painful office, imitating Isaac, wdio carried the 
wood destined for his own sacrifice. 

She spoke to them first of the vocation of Marguerite, 
her elder sister, and the parents, truly Christian as they 
were, resigned themselves to it. But when she went on to 
beg the same permission for herself, the news fell upon 
them like a thunderbolt. Breaking forth into sobs and 
tears, they cried: " Alas, we are old ; we had counted on 
you to be the support of our declining years. You are our 
only hope. If you leave us, you w T ill hasten our death." 
Every means was employed to shake her resolution, and 
her tenderly sensitive heart suffered most acutely. But, 
thanks to this blessed child so wonderfully filled with the 
spirit of God, everything was accomplished " mightily and 
sweetly." More closely united by the very violence done 
their vocation, the two sisters, night and day, incessantly 
implored the Lord to strengthen them, and, at the same 
time, change the intense but natural grief of their beloved 
parents into calm and holy resignation. Their prayers were 
answered. Faith triumphed over nature, and with many 
tears, the good father and mother blessed them, saying: 
" Since He who gave you to us demands you from us 
again, may His holy and adorable will be accomplished in 
you, beloved children, for He is the Father and Master of 



Her Entrance into Religion. yj 

all." Mother St. Francis and Sister Mary of the Visita- 
tion, who were present at this heart-rending scene, tried to 
console the bereaved parents, promising to be mothers to 
their children. 

Everything being thus arranged, the sisters left Bas, 
July 1, 1778, at which time Jeanne was nineteen years 
old. 

At Monistrol, Mgr. de Grail ard received them with the 
kindness of a father, and conducted them to the little house 
in which they were to reside until the development of the 
community should call for a larger and more commodious 
dwelling. The fame of Mother St. Francis' sanctity had 
preceded her, and she was received not only with sympathy 
but veneration. Parents esteemed themselves happy in 
confiding their children to her. Many young- ladies of the 
city, also, petitioned for entrance into the community ; 
and the novitiate which she opened, being manifestly 
blessed by God, increased rapidly. Marguerite and Jeanne 
Fontbonne were truly the ornaments of that novitiate, in 
which their fervor took new and admirable growth. Em- 
ployed in the lowest offices of the house, they performed 
them with a humility, exactitude, and joy which edified 
the whole community, for Jesus in Nazareth was their 
Model, and they obeyed the Sisters without distinction, as 
He obeyed Mary and Joseph. Jeanne's modesty, fer- 
vor, exemplary fidelity to the least rules and practices of 
the novitiate, her gentle sweetness and amiability, made 
her the very angel of that little cmnaculwn ; and her solid 
virtue, clear and upright judgment, well-balanced mind — 
as decided and practical as it was refined and delicate — 
won the admiration of the Sisters. All agreed that both 
were ripe for the religious life, and they were accordingly 
received to the habit in 1779. As the records of the place 
were burned during the French Eevolution, the precise 
date of either their reception or profession is not known ; 



78 Life of Rev. Mother St. JoJin Fontbonne. 

but both ceremonies were held at the proper time, and con- 
formably to the rules of discipline then in force. Mgr. de 
Gallard presided, giving Marguerite the name of Sister St. 
Teresa, and Jeanne that of Sister St. John. The act of 
profession consummating the sacrifice, put, as it were, the 
seal on their hopes and aspirations. 

Casting aside joyfully the crown of roses that wreathed 
her brow, and loosening her beautiful hair, Sister St. John 
exclaimed : " Cut off, Mother, cut off this vain adorn- 
ment, and cover me with a thick veil, that henceforth I 
may be separated forever from the world and its pomps." 

The new spouses of Jesus slackened not in their fervor, 
and thenceforth to the professed as previously to the novices, 
they were models of perfect regularity and true religious 
obedience. Their wise Superior spared them no trial that 
could prove and strengthen their virtue ; and her direction, 
especially as regarded the younger, was almost always severe; 
for to her strong and saintly soul the truest love was love 
for their perfection. Hence she endeavored so to chisel 
that pure and beautiful marble, as to engrave deeply 
thereon the image of Jesus Christ, in that form, especially, 
which was so dear to the great Apostle, — the image of Jesus 
crucified, et hunc crucifixion. 

Deeply skilled in the spiritual life, Mother St. Francis 
knew that as gold must be refined and purified in the fur- 
nace, so Jeanne's soul must be tried in the crucible, out of 
which it would come forth only the more resplendent. 
It may be, also, that she feared the influence of flesh and 
blood in her relations with her nieces, or dreaded to arouse 
in her community feelings and susceptibilities always in- 
jurious to discipline and the religious spirit. Be that as it 
may, Divine Providence, the Disposer and Ruler of human 
events, had His own august designs in her manner of di- 
rection. Even at that time might be heard, in the distance, 
the faint rumblings of that terrific storm which, a few years 



Her Zeal and Devotion. 79 

later, was to burst on France, directing its fury mainly 
against religion and its Divine works. God, in the mean- 
time, willed to prepare for her future mission the young re- 
ligious destined to steer her little community through the 
first hours of the tempest, and, in after years, reconstruct 
her Congregation from the shattered remnants spared by 
revolutionary fury. Such a destiny called for a strong, 
valiant, soldier-like soul, such as can be trained only by 
severe and vigorous discipline ; and Mother St. Francis 
was the instrument employed by Divine Wisdom for this 
end. 

Treated with outward coldness and severity by one whom 
she loved both as natural relative and spiritual Superior, 
our poor Sister St. John suffered exceedingly. She trem- 
bled involuntarily when she went to ask her permission to 
do anything, and when, during the hour of recreation, she 
would give herself up to innocent mirth, she tells us, that 
if she chanced to meet her aunt's glance, she did not venture 
again to open her mouth. Her affection for her Superior 
was not, however, lessened by this apparent harshness, 
and until the end of her life she entertained the most 
profound veneration and filial love for Mother St. Francis. 

Having been placed, some time later, at the head of the 
schools at Monistrol, Sister St. John displayed qualities 
that won for her the love and veneration of her pupils and 
their families. On Sundays and Thursdays she was accus- 
tomed to assemble the young girls of the parish, read them 
a spiritual lecture, and speak to them so wisely and sweetly 
of the things of God, that she drew their hearts to the love 
and practice of virtue. So great was her success, that 
Mother St. Francis, without relaxing her external severity, 
could not but bless God for the good operated by her niece. 

The community at Monistrol was, indeed, a veritable 
comacidum. in which the Holy Spirit seemed to delight in 
shedding His gifts. The Bishop, marvelling at the extra- 



80 Life of Rev. Mother SL John Fontbonne. 

ordinary fervor of the Sisters, thanked God for having in- 
spired him to choose so holy a Superior. The Sisters at 
Bas, however, continually reminding him of his promise 
to restore Mother St. Francis, compelled him finally to ac- 
quiesce in their desires, and allow their beloved Mother to 
depart. 

So wiselv and so well had she established the work, that 
the Bishop felt certain the blessing of God would rest 
upon it, and assure its success. The better to preserve and 
perpetuate its spirit, as well as to give the venerable Supe- 
rior a testimony of his satisfaction and gratitude for all she 
had done at Monistrol, he told her that the work should 
be carried on by her whom she had so thoroughly trained, 
her niece, Sister St. John, whom he intended to appoint 
Superior. At this unexpected news, Mother St. Francis 
ventured modestly to expostulate, saying that Sister St. 
John was inexperienced, and was, moreover, the youngest 
of the community. But the prelate replied that though 
young, she possessed that wisdom and judgment usually 
found only in the aged. 

This honorable, spontaneous, and almost inspired testi- 
mony, rendered by that wise prelate to the youthful Supe- 
rior, confirmed the hopes already entertained as to her vir- 
tue and efficiency. In this way was our Lord, according 
to His custom, gradually preparing and consolidating the 
designs of His infinite wisdom in her regard. 




CHAPTER IV. 

Mother St. John as Superior at Monistrol. — Works undertaken by 
her. — Breaking out of the Revolution. — Mgr. de Gallard refuses 
to take the oath and is forced into exile. — Apostasy of the Cure" 
of Monistrol. Persecution of the Sisters. — First attack on the 
Convent. — Dispersion of the Sisters. — Second attack.- Mother 
St. John and the remaining Sisters take refuge in her father's 
house. 

HE premonitory symptoms of the Revolution, to 
which we have before alluded, grew daily more 
threatening, and the new Superior of Monistrol was 
destined to meet and heroically resist its attacks, in which 
many, even, of the stones of the sanctuary should be broken. 

According to the Bishop's wish, the election took place 
on the 5th of October, the day after the departure of 
Mother St. Francis. 

Dear and venerable as this Superior was to the people 
and Sisters, they could not but mourn her loss ; but to her 
nieces, especially to the one on whom the burden of supe- 
riority now fell, it was most bitter ; to use the Scriptural ex- 
pression, it was like a division of the soul. At Bas, on the 
contrary, there was the greatest rejoicing, and the people 
united with the Sisters in welcoming Mother St. Francis' 
return. We cannot do better than transcribe here the 
words 'of a venerable priest, her compatriot, who writes : 
" Mother St. Francis was absent from Bas for seven years, 
superintending a foundation of the Sisters of St. Joseph at 
Monistrol. After having satisfactorily accomplished that 
mission, she returned to her former home. She was a person 



82 Life of Rev. Mother St. Jo Jin Fontbonne. 

of extraordinary merit, endowed with exquisite tact, cor- 
rect judgment, and unbounded zeal ; and it is not surpris- 
ing that her works were crowned with great success. She 
remained at the head of the community in Bas until the 
Revolution, which in France has always been anti-religious, 
dispersed the Sisters and closed the doors of the convent/' 

Her successor at Monistrol, then only twenty-six years 
old, set herself zealously to carry on the work so well be- 
gun. 

In every emergency she displayed prudence, tact, and 
administrative talents far beyond her years and experi- 
ence; at the same time, she lost nothing of that simplicity, 
amenity, and equality of disposition which had always char- 
acterized her. Broad in her views and unbounded in her 
charity, she understood and practised religious life in its 
fullest perfection, and her Sisters were accustomed to say 
that they had never heard the vows of religion explained 
so well as by Mother St. John. She had the grace of pro- 
curing union of hearts; her wish was that her Sisters, like 
the early Christians, should have but one heart and one 
mind. 

Her delight was to take part in the recreations ; and 
often seated on the grass, surrounded by her spiritual fam- 
ily, she w T ould spend the hour in joyous, intimate, and pious 
conversation, which she was accustomed to end by ex- 
claiming, like the Beloved Apostle John : " my 
Sisters ! let us love one another ; it is so sweet, so good to 
love ! And then it is the law of our Lord." 

Charmed with the spirit that animated that house, Mgr. 
de Gallard found great consolation in visiting it, and, after 
the example of St. Francis de Sales in his dear little iee- 
li ive of the Visitation, in instructing his children on the 
religions life, and the spirit and obligations of their state. 
When, during these pious conferences, the Sisters asked 
him questions on the subject, he would sometimes refer to 



Works Undertaken by her. 8 



6 



Mother St. John, saying : " Let your Mother here reply 
to that question." The excuse of ignorance which she 
pleaded being of no avail, she would, with the humility 
and simplicity of a child, express her thoughts and opin- 
ions, begging the Bishop to rectify her errors. Thus it 
was that the prelate took pleasure in revealing to others 
the rare wisdom, prudence, and judgment of the young 
Superior. 

On one occasion, he, under more solemn circumstances, 
gave public proof of the high esteem in which he held her. 
Having undertaken to build at Monistrol a hospital to be 
under the charge of the Sisters of St. Joseph, the Bishop, at 
the laying of the corner-stone, desired Mother St. John to 
bless it after him. Terrified at the command, yet con- 
strained to obe}^, she was overwhelmed with confusion, 
and suffered much, as she herself says, at seeing " one so 
mean and unworthy standing beside His Grace, and asso- 
ciated with him in so holy an action." 

The zeal, devotedness, charity, and wisdom displayed in 
the new work under her direction won for her community 
the confidence and affection of the townspeople, and in 
the accounts then written we find her spoken of as " the 
Mother of the whole city." Mme. de Chantemule, a lady 
ennobled even more by virtue and charity than by blood, 
had consecrated part of her fortune to the beneficent work 
undertaken by Mgr. de Gallard. By frequenting the hos- 
pital she became acquainted with its Superior, and con- 
ceived the highest veneration for her wisdom and sanctity. 
Virtue effaced all social distinctions, and throughout life, 
the noble lady and the humble religious were linked in a 
close and holy friendship. 

To increase the good operated by this foundation, Mother 
St. John undertook to assemble in one of the halls of the 
hospital the pious young girls of Monistrol; that, under her 
supervision, they might work for themselves, their families. 



84 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne. 

or the poor; and that thus she might draw them from the 
dangers of the world, and form them to solid piety. The 
more effectually to compass her end, she used to read to 
them spiritual works, which she supplemented by pious ex- 
hortations on the duties of their state. By such means, 
coupled with her talents for direction, the young Superior 
was, with the blessing of God, enabled to do much good, and 
the town soon became filled with pious, fervent Christians; 
so that with St. Teresa she might have said: " I have seen 
the grace of God, as a mighty eagle with outspread wings, 
seize upon these young souls to drag them from evil and 
the world, and raise them up even unto Heaven. " 

But the year 1789, the fatal epoch of the Eevolution, broke 
on unhappy France. Religion and its beneficent but calum- 
niated works were to pass through the fiery ordeal, submit 
to every species of outrage and persecution, and sustain 
irreparable losses. The storm speedily assumed frightful 
proportions, and its hellish fury found vent in the wildest 
excesses. Having overthrown the Church in France, it 
sought to take her place and exercise her powers, in which 
view it framed the infamous " Civil Constitution of the 
Clergy," a confused and absurd medley of Jansenism, 
Protestantism, and impious laicism. Declared obligatory 
on the 4th of January, 1791, it was imposed on all the 
clergy, who were required to swear before the revolu- 
tionary municipalities that they would conform thereto ; 
the penalt}^ of refusal was, first, deprivation of all 
salary, and afterwards, deportation, exile, or death. Like 
his venerable colleagues, the Bishop of Le Puy refused the 
impious oath, and expressed his reasons for that act in the 
following address to the municipal authorities: 

" I have already told you the truth, gentlemen; I have 
told it respectfully, yet, at the same time, with that zeal 
and freedom to be expected from your Bishop. But, 
the depth of the judgments of God! the holiest of my duties 



Address of Mgr. de G a Hard. 85 

is, perhaps, about to become for me, your chief pastor, the 
inexhaustible source of sorrow and of tears. By obeying 
the voice of God and my own conscience, I shall, perhaps, 
dig the abyss which is to separate me from my people. 
I shall, probably have made the torch of faith shine more 
brilliantly in their sight, only to hasten the moment when 
it shall be torn from my grasp. Yet a few more days, and 
my only consolation may be to weep, like Eachael, over 
ni}' children, whom I shall vainly call by that name, once 
to me so sweet: i my people, my beloved flock; ' for such 
you shall ever be, until the Church, our common Mother, 
breaks the links, the sacred bonds that unite }^ou to us in 
Jesus Christ. 

' ; Whatever may be the painful consequences of the duty 
I am about to fulfil, I call on the God of our fathers to 
witness that, whether absent or present, my heart shall 
remain ever in the midst of you. Exiled in a foreign land, 
far from this new country to which Heaven has called me, 
which my heart has adopted, and to which I have sworn a 
fidelity which nothing has been able to change or to shake, 
I shall weep at the remembrance of Sion and my Beloved 
Spouse. ancient and venerable Temple, heretofore the 
witness of my joys, to-day the depositary of my grief, may 
my tongue cleave to my palate ere I ever forget thee ! Holy 
ministers and faithful counsellors in my pastoral cares, and 
you, indefatigable co-laborers in the work of Jesus Christ, 
if I can no longer direct and share your labors, I will, at 
least, associate myself thereto by my vows and prayers. 
Chaste spouses of Jesus Christ, Christian virgins, though 
unable to console myself with you in the trials that are 
common to us, I will at least strengthen my constancy 
and fidelity by the remembrance of yours. Poor ones of 
Jesus Christ, in lamenting your bitter lot, there will re- 
main to me, at least, the sad consolation of knowing that, 
before God, I am innocent of your sorrows and your suffer- 



86 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne. 

ings. What a heart-rending prospect ! May God, so fruit- 
ful in resources and so rich in mercies, spare me the chalice 
so filled with bitterness ! May the charity of Jesus Christ 
dwell in our midst, and may the peace of the Church soon 
restore happiness to us all ! " ' 

But these tender and sublime words were powerless to 
touch or soften the wolves of the Revolution. On the con- 
trary, they won for him the more speedily their bloody at- 
tentions. Ere long he was grossly insulted and even fired 
at in his carriage ; and to such extremities did they pro- 
ceed, that he was compelled to take refuge in Switzerland. 

Poet as well as orator, he has expressed in verse the he- 
roic sentiments of his magnanimous soul in the hour of 
trial. We subjoin the hymn of his resignation, whicli 
shines as a gleam of light through the sorrows and dark- 
ness that overwhelmed him. 

Wilt choose the oath or indigence ? 

My heart, oh, answer me ! 
Farewell, forever, honor, wealth; 

Let God my portion be. 

Shall not the bark that bears not gold 

Attain the wished- for port ? 
More speedy still, from burden free, 

'Twill enter Heaven's court. 

Around me swells the angry sea, 

It roars with threatening voice ; 
I laugh to scorn its impotence, 

And, calm in God, rejoice. 

sea, beat o'er me in thy wrath ! 

Though tossed still to and fro, 
The Bark of Peter shelters me 

"Which ne'er shall shipwreck know. 

Before his departure into exile, when Mother St. John 

1 Given at Puy, Jan. 13, 1791. 



Persecution of the Sisters. 87 

went to bid him farewell, and to receive for the communi- 
ty his parting benediction and advice how to act amid the 
assaults which she foresaw the Revolution would raise 
against them, he gave her his own portrait in testimony of 
his veneration for her, and as a token which might soften 
somewhat the bitterness of separation. 1 

This sad parting interview was but the prelude to heavier 
trials. The position of the community became daily more 
painful and critical, as the Cure of Monistro], a man of 
considerable learning and talent, permitted himself to be 
seduced by the Revolution, and endeavored, by every 
means in his power, to make his flock sharers in his fall by 
dragging them into the Constitutional schism. 

What a dangerous temptation, what a sorrowful trial for 
those religious ! Xevertheless, they were neither seduced 
nor terrified. They courageously refused to assist at a 
procession of the Blessed Sacrament presided over by the 
apostate ; and, despite all the efforts of their erring pastor, 
who went so far as to rouse the parish against the commu- 
nity, the Sisters of St. Joseph remained firm and unshaken 
in the faith, directed and sustained by their holy Supe- 
rior. 

It was not long ere the emissaries of the Revolution 
came, armed with hatchets and axes, to attack their peace- 
ful dwelling, and force them to take the impious oath ex- 
acted by the convention, and already taken by their un- 
faithful pastor. But calm and serene, Mother St. John 
presented herself before them, alone; and, in the name of 
her daughters refused the required oath, saying with ad- 
mirable dignity and firmness: " It is unnecessary to bring 
the community before you: here, the head answers for the 



1 The Sisters of St. Joseph at Lyons still preserve, with love and veneration, the 
portrait which this confessor of the faith gave Mother St. John ; as also a magnifi- 
cent cross of gold, enriched with many precious relics, which Cardinal de Eonald 
gave to the same dear Mother as a token of esteem. 



88 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonnc. 

members." Disappointed and abashed at her holy courage, 
the miscreants withdrew, exclaiming : " What a woman 
that is ! There is nothing to be gained from her." 

Changing their tactics, they returned to the charge later 
on, and by various artifices, tried first to separate, and 
afterwards to weaken the union of the community with 
that " head " whom they could not hope to vanquish. All 
was useless ; the vigilant sentinel was not to be taken un- 
awares ; she sustained her community, encouraged the 
timorous, and consecrated the time allowed them under 
the circumstances in imploring that help from God which 
they so sorely needed ; pouring meanv/hile, into the Heart 
of Jesus alone, the anguish that filled her own. 

Finding, however, the tempest was not likely to abate, 
and dreading for her daughters inexpressible misfortunes, 
she advised them to seek shelter, for the time being, in 
the bosom of their own families. 

The last embrace was given amid sobs and tears of an- 
guish, and the Sisters separated, imploring our Lord to 
shorten the bitter days of exile. Mother St. John, how- 
ever, with Sister Teresa and Sister Martha, a lay-sister de- 
votedly attached to her, remained at her threatened and 
dangerous post, despite the tears and entreaties of her aged 
father, who wished her to seek safety beneath the paternal 
roof. 

But at last the dreaded hour arrived. An infuriated 
mob besieged St. Joseph's Convent, broke open the doors, 
and forced into the street the three religious, taking pos- 
session of the establishment in the name of the Commune. 
Sheltered at first by some pious persons, they found means 
later to get to their father's house, which they made a sol- 
itude, another convent of St. Joseph. 

Thanks to the pious customs of the faith preserved. in 
that patriarchal home, such a transformation was very 
easv. It was even its inestimable privilege, during the 



A Refuge and a Sanctuary. 89 

Revolution, to shelter under its roof the most Blessed Sac- 
rament, preserved in a secret room of the house, in which 
sacred oratory the family were accustomed to meet for 
night and morning prayers. There, too, it was that Mother 
St. John and her two religious companions mingled their 
tears for the woes that afflicted the Holy Church of Jesus 
Christ ; there they prayed for the beloved Sisters whom the 
persecution had dispersed ; there, too, they encouraged to 
perseverance in their faith those faithful Catholics who 
came secretly to adore their Eucharistic God. 

Mother St. John, by her holy and inflamed discourses, in- 
creased the ardor of love in their hearts, and throughout 
those days of mourning and weeping, that blessed home, 
happy in possessing the spouses of our Lord, became a sanc- 
tuary whence prayer and praise ascended daily unto God. 

Very frequently, too, they had the joy of welcoming- 
some persecuted confessor of the faith, for M. Fontbonne 
had caused several secret hiding-places to be constructed, 
to which they could fly in case of emergency. The advent 
of the priest meant, to the holy inmates of that home, a 
feast of joy, an opportunity of approaching the Sacraments 
of Penance and the Eucharist, and assisting at the Holy 
Sacrifice — graces all the dearer because of the danger that 
attended them. It was a renewal of the Church of the 
Catacombs ; and from those secret sacred mysteries the 
assistants came forth, replenished with zeal and ardor for 
the cause of religion, and more strengthened to surfer, nay, 
if necessary, to die for Christ. Bat how cautious soever 
they might be, such a mode of life could not escape dis- 
covery ; suspicions were aroused and the house was often 
searched by the municipal authorities, in hopes of finding 
therein some faithful minister of Christ whom they could 
drag thence to prison, to exile, or to death. 

But M. and Mme. Fontbonne, like vigilant sentinels 
ever on the alert, were not to be taken by surprise. Fear- 



90 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

less of personal danger, they met their unwelcome visitors 
with imperturbable coolness, and, more than once, suc- 
ceeded in disarming their fury and calming their suspic- 
ions. 

When, on one occasion, the search had been more than 
ordinarily rigorous, one of the officers noticed a little secret 
door in one corner of the house, and demanded whither it 
led. Terror thrilled every heart, for it was the entrance 
to the hiding-place where, at that moment, the object of 
their search was concealed. " Open this door immediate- 
ly," cried the officer. "I must know what it is." "Oh, 
most certainly, citizen," cheerfully responded Mme. Font- 
bonne, apparently all eagerness to comply with his request. 
Completely deceived by her manner, he resumed : i( Well, 
never mind it. We are sure of your loyalty." 

The priest was saved, and with hearts overflowing with 
gratitude to God, that happy household chanted the can- 
ticle of thanksgiving. 

Thus did the home of the Fontbonnes, bearing a like- 
ness to the primitive Church, win for itself benedictions 
like those which, in those early days, hallowed the homes 
of Priscilla, Aquila, Chloe, and others that had the honor 
of sheltering the Apostle of Nations, whose gratitude has 
handed their name down to the veneration of succeeding 
ages. 



CHAPTER V. 

Mother St. John and her Sisters are imprisoned. — They meet 
Mother St. Francis of Bas. — Sentenced to death, they await the 
hour of execution as the time of triumph. — They are saved by 
the fall of Robespierre. — Mother St. John returns to her family. 




EANWHILE, the fury of the Revolution, far 
from abating, was ever on the increase ; and 
with the triumph of the Convention and Robes- 
pierre, the late Superior of Monistrol and her sister be- 
came, no less than the priests, the objects of search. A 
price was even set upon their heads ; and God, whose de- 
signs are impenetrable, but who, doubtless, wished to 
enhance their glory and their crown, permitted their re- 
treat to be discovered. 

Breaking tumultuously into the house, the emissaries of 
Satan demanded the religious sheltered therein. To ward 
off the danger that thus menaced the priests hidden there 
at that very time, Mother St. John, Sister Teresa, and 
Sister Martha appeared before them. ei What do you 
want, my friends ? " asked Mother St. John, in a calm and 
dignified tone. "We want," answered they, " to take you 
and your companions to the Mass which the patriot priest 
is going to say in this parish." "Never," exclaimed the 
heroic Mother ; " never will we consent to communicate 
with a faithless priest, an apostate! " " We would rather 
die than renounce our faith," added the religious unani- 
mously. 

Enraged by their refusal, the men seized them by force, 
and dragged them towards the church, beating the drum 



92 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

meanwhile and crying aloud : " Make way for these three 
citizens, whom we are taking to church. " Kneeling 
benches had been placed for them in the choir, that they 
might be more easily seen by all the people. But, firm 
and undaunted, the Sisters stood erect, to show their ab- 
horrence of the sacrilegious ceremonies so tumultuouslv 
celebrated before them. On bringing them forth from the 
church, their persecutors again loaded them with every 
species of insult, until they reached the house of M. 
Fontbonne ; but the dirt and slime of earth cannot sully 
the w r ings of angels. Before entering the house, Mother 
St. John, desiring to protest against the impious violence 
of which she and her Sisters had been the object, addressed 
herself to the surrounding crowd, exclaiming: "My 
friends, know that by force alone have we been carried to 
the sacrilegious Mass of an apostate priest. Our hearts 
and our wills have had no part therein ; we remain invio- 
lably attached to the true faith, the Catholic and Eoman 
faith, and no violence shall ever be able to separate us 
from it. " Her courageous words were received with furi- 
ous vociferations by the maddened crowd. ]^or was it 
long before the victims were torn from the arms of their 
parents, handcuffed, loaded with chains, and thrown into 
the prison of Saint Didier, to await the sentence of death. 
Their aged father, broken-hearted at the sufferings of 
his children, used to go four leagues on foot, and brave 
every danger, to carry them a little food in their horrible 
prison. The Sisters had been incarcerated but a few days, 
when they saw the prison doors open to receive other cap- 
tives, among whom they recognized their aunt, Mother St. 
Francis, the late Superior of Bas. At the dispersion of 
her community she had not been able to return to her 
own family, but continued for some time to wander, with 
several of the Sisters, through the hamlets and forests of 
the surrounding country, seeking, sometimes at night, 



Arrest of Mother St. Francis. 93 

hospitality and shelter from isolated Christian families. 
But amid such trials she had the ineffable consolation of 
being allowed to carry about with her the Most Blessed 
Sacrament, — a privilege like that granted to the early 
Christians in the time of persecution. Assembling around 
her her Sisters, in some little hut or hidden recess in the 
depth of the forest, she would lay on the corporal her 
Sacred Treasure ; and there, long prostrate before Him, 
who was homeless like themselves, they would adore and 
bless Him for thus condescending to console their sorrows, 
and accompany them in their wanderings, wherever, by 
the force of the tempest, they were compelled to flee. 

Unable to find a safe asylum, Sister Mary of the Visita- 
tion, like her Sisters, wandered from one hiding-place to 
the other, meeting them in their sad but holy reunions 
whenever she could do so without danger to them or her- 
self. Having on one occasion found refuge with a friend 
of her family, some one ran, breathless, to warn her that 
the Sans-culottes were coming to make their customary 
search. She had barely time to throw herself into the 
nearest bed ; and the mistress of the house, pretending to 
be occupied in the care of a patient, excused herself for not 
being able to receive the men as she desired, but begged 
them to take some refreshment. The ruse was success- 
ful : Sister Mary of the Visitation was saved. 

At Easter, Mother St. Francis and her companions 
made their way over mountains and through forests, 
at the cost of indescribable dangers and fatigue to the 
Shrine of Louvesc, that they might receive the Sacraments 
of Penance and the Blessed Eucharist from a true priest. 
So great were the trials which had to be undergone in this 
holy pilgrimage, that faith and love alone could have sur- 
mounted them ; but the example of their saintly Superior 
inspired the Sisters with courage like unto her own. 

Their Paschal duty accomplished, they returned to their 



94 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

wandering life in the vicinity of Bas, where it pleased God 
Mother St. Francis should be discovered by the patriots, 
arrested and dragged to the very same prison in which 
Mother St. John and her companions were confined. Sis- 
ter Mary of the Visitation again escaped the persecutors. 

The little troop of captives, meanwhile, were calmly 
awaiting their fate, and preparing themselves for martyr- 
dom ; and their prison, the scene of sufferings and priva- 
tions of every kind, was the scene also of sanctity, courage, 
celestial joy, and holy magnanimity like to those of the 
first champions of the faith. Separation from the world 
had no sadness or terrors for those to whom the whole 
world was a prison, and to Mother St. John it seemed 
rather release from a dungeon than entrance therein. 

" The world," said Tertullian, speaking of the ancient 
martyrs, "is a thousand times more gloomy than the 
prison; its darkness blinds the heart. The chains of the 
world are much heavier ; its fetters bind the soul. The 
world exhales a more poisonous miasma, which arises from 
the passions of men. The world encloses many more guilty 
wretches ; of its superfluity the prisons are filled. The 
martyrs live in a gloomy dungeon, but they are themselves 
a light ; chains bind them, but they are free before God. 
They breathe an infected atmosphere, but shed around 
them a perfume of Divine sweetness. Let us, then," con- 
cludes the African Doctor, "let us not use the word prison; 
rather call it a retreat. Though the body be chained and 
the flesh captive, the heart and mind are free." 1 "As 
for me," writes St. Jerome, fi my prison is a castle, and 
my desert, a paradise." 2 As if to them had been addressed 
these powerful exhortations, the Sisters transformed their 
prison into a place of retreat, a convent, a house of prayer. 
The heart of Mother St. John, above all, overflowed with 



1 Tertullian, Ex. to Martyrs. 2 St. Jer., Ad. Ruf. 



Heroic Courage of Mother St. John. 95 

joy ; her cell was lier palace, the vestibule of Heaven ; 
and her chains, jewels and bracelets of inestimable price ; 
the nakedness of the prison, the hardness and humidity of 
the plank that served her as a bed, dear and blessed means 
presented for the practice of religious poverty and mortifi- 
cation. Deprived of the happiness of assisting at Mass and 
receiving the Sacraments, she visited in spirit the closed 
churches, desiring to water with her tears and blood those 
desecrated sanctuaries ; and offered her life daily in expia- 
tion of the sacrileges that had stained them. 

Like the young virgin Blandina, whom the Acts of the 
Martyrs represent as a noble mother, tanquam nobilis 
Mater, because of her courage and sublime exhortations to 
the other martyrs, the young Superior of Monistrol, about 
the same age as the great martyr of Lyons, was also the 
noble mother of her companions in captivity, by communi- 
cating to them something of her strength and fortitude. 

" The just," says the Holy Spirit in the Book of Wisdom, 
" shall hold themselves with great firmness against those 
who torment them, and despise their holy works. At the 
sight, the wicked shall be troubled/' So, by her heavenly 
serenity and ready answers, Mother St. John confounded 
her jailers. They commanded her to work on Sundays 
and holydays, and to observe the Decade which they had 
substituted therefor. " If I had been willing to do that," 
she replied, " I should not now be here." When, discon- 
certed, they threatened her with a deeper dungeon, 
" Come, let us go," she answered. " Which way leads to 
it ?" When they wished to force from her the cry Vive 
la Repullique ! she cried louder still, Vive Jesus I Vive 
Marie ! 

After a long detention, in the course of which they had 
seen many of those in the prison summoned to the scaffold, 
the executioner at last entered their room, and cried aloud : 
"Citizens, it is your turn to-morrow." Trembling with 



96 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbomie. 

joy and not with terror, they, with St. Cyprian, responded, 
Deo gratias ! "To-morrow!" said the prisoners among 
themselves, " oh, to-morrow will be the happiest day of 
our lives ; let us, then, prepare our garments." Mother 
St. John remembered that she still possessed a small piece 
of money, and it was unanimously resolved to spend it in 
having their clothes washed the best they could, for the 
grand festival of the morrow. 

Thus prepared, with lamps aflame with the light of faith 
and love, those wise virgins eagerly awaited the coming of 
the Bridegroom, that with Him they might enter in to the 
wedding-feast of the Lamb. Suddenly the door was 
thrown open. Starting to their feet, they were preparing 
to go forth to that scaffold which they regarded as the 
stepping-stone to Heaven, when they heard the words : 
" Citizens, you are free. Eobespierre has fallen ; your 
chains are broken." At this news, which to so many of 
their fellow captives was " tidings of great joy," Mother 
St. John exclaimed, sorrowfully : " Ah, my Sisters, we 
were not worthy the grace of dying for our holy religion. 
Our sins have been the obstacle to so great a favor." 

When, in her after life, the Sisters used to allude to this 
holy period, she would adroitly turn the conversation from 
herself to her fellow-sufferers, whose glorious martyrdoms 
she delighted to recount. 1 

Thus snatched from the claws of the revolutionary tiger, 
and freed, to their regret, from their chains, the religious 

1 Mother St. John has left us a list of twenty-one persons of her acquaintance, 
chiefly ecclesiastics, who were then immolated for the faith. Their names are in- 
scribed in her prison note-boo^. While the above-mentioned Sisters were immured 
in Saint-Didier, five other Sisters of St. Joseph were imprisoned in Feurs, twenty in 
Clermont, and others in various parts of France. To some of these Sisters was 
granted the glory of dying for their faith and vocation, as is shown by the following 
extract from the Annals of the Congregation of Le Puy : " Our Congregation has 
had its martyrs ; the condemnations of the Civil Tribunal record the names of some 
religious of St. Joseph. 

" A judgment delivered by this fatal tribunal on the 16th of June condemns to 
death— the sentence to be carried out on the same day—seven persons, among 



Her Return to her Family. 97 

returned to the bosom of their families. It was not long 
before Mother St. Francis and her daughters had the op- 
portunity of presenting to Citizen Pierrot, who then rep- 
resented the people of France in Haute-Loire, a claim 
for the restoration of their property, which, through the 
goodness of God, having been accepted as valid, the Sisters 
reassumed possession of their beloved convent. Mother 
St. Francis presided over this community until 1802, when, 
attended by her relatives, Sister Mary of the Visitation, Sis- 
ter Teresa, and Mother St. John, she rendered up her pure 
soul to her Divine Spouse, for whom she had so zealously 
labored, so gloriously suffered. Her name and memory 
are still held in veneration in those places sanctified by 
her zeal and virtues. 

Sister Mary of the Visitation survived her eight years, — 
years wholly consecrated to labors of charity. To visit 
the poor in their miserable dwellings ; to obtain help for 
them by every means in her power ; to lead them to make 
good use of their trials and privations, was the labor of her 
life, so that she was known as the Mother of the poor, the 
consoler of the afflicted, to whom, under God, many souls 
owed their eternal salvation. In 1810 she was called to 
her reward, and in death was attended by her two nieces, 
who had ever gratefully regarded her as the angel guar- 
dian of their religious vocation. 

But to return to our subject. On their release from pris- 
on, Mother St. John and her sister were met by their 



whom we find two priests and two religious of St. Joseph, Sister Anne Marie 
Gamier and Sister Marie Aubert. The Author of The Martyrs of the Revolution 
in the Haute-Loire thus recounts their bloody execution: 'The numerous specta- 
tors who congregated to see the condemned walk from their prison to the scaffold, 
beholding their calm and recollected demeanor, could scarcely restrain the evidences 
of their emotion. On the way, the priests chanted the Miserere. Sr. M. Aubert, 
the first to die, was followed by Sr. Gamier, Marie Best, Marie Roche, BarthSlemy 
Best, and lastly by the two priests, M. Mourier and M. Abeillon, who seeing the 
bloody tragedy drawing to its close, intoned the TeDeum, and rendered up their 
own lives in the act of chanting : In te, Domine, speravV " 



98 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

brother, Claude Fontbonne, who, at the news of their ap- 
proaching execution, had hastened to Saint-Didier, in the 
hope of receiving their parting words, and of recommend- 
ing himself to their prayers, concealing, in the meanwhile, 
from his aged father the impending crisis in the fate of 
*his children. 

On his way he met a friendly notary of Bas, who told him 
of Robespierre's fall, and the probable deliverance of his 
aunt and sisters, but hope had died within him. 

When, therefore, he arrived at Saint-Didier and found 
that, instead of bidding them farewell, he could congrat- 
ulate them on their restoration to freedom, the sudden 
transition from deep grief to heartfelt joy was too much 
for his strength, and he fell senseless to the ground. The 
shock brought on a violent fever, during which Mother 
St. John never left him, until, by her care, her prayers 
and tears, she had restored him in health to his family. 

Nor was this the only blessing by which God rewarded the 
Christian devotedness of the true brother. All his children 
having in their infancy been recalled, one by one, to the 
bosom of God, the desolate parents felt most acutely the 
loneliness of their childless hearth. In 1803, another son 
was born to them, and a Franciscan who lived with M. 
"Fontbonne — his convent being still closed — seeing that 
lie dreaded the loss of this child also, said : " Have con- 
fidence ; this boy will not die. Get him baptized at the al- 
tar of St. Thyrsius. He will one day be a priest of the 
Church, and a zealous missionary." The words proved 
prophetic ; the child was baptized by the name of James 
Fontbonne, and when grown up and ordained to the sacred 
ministry, consecrated himself to the missions of America, 
as we shall see later on. 

This boy was to Mother St. John a child of predilec- 
tion ; and when afterwards Providence fixed her at Saint- 
Etienne, she loved to have him near her, that he might 



Her Return to her Family. 99 

grow up, under her own eyes, in piety and the fear of God. 

The first use Mother St. John made of her liberty was 
to try to reassemble at Monistrol her dispersed community. 
The religious life was her element, and with her usual 
prudence and address, she applied to the municipality for 
the restoration of that house in which had been invested 
the dowries of herself and Sisters. A claim so just could 
not be ignored, but the convent had been sold by the 
Commune, and the proprietor refused to restore it at any 
price. The municipal finances were at the lowest ebb, 
and the officials all hostile to religion, for the revolution- 
ary spirit had been carried farther in Monistrol than in 
other places ; as the pastor himself had greatly favored it, 
the torrent, meeting no check, had swept before it every- 
thing good, whether moral or physical. According to the 
remark of Taine, it is characteristic of revolution, when 
unrestrained, to go on blindly, devouring all before it, and 
leading to bankruptcy the countries under its rule. A re- 
port addressed to the First Consul by the Prefects of 
France sets forth that ' ' a universal degradation, physical 
and moral, brought about by the reign of anarchy and 
impiety, was then imprinted on the face of France." It is 
not our task here to prove that assertion ; it is a historical 
fact. Hence, Monistrol lent itself less readily than Bas to 
religious restoration ; and while awaiting better days, 
Mother St. John, with her sister and her faithful compan- 
ion, returned home. With a joyful heart M. Fontbonne 
received them, exclaiming : " How happy I am to see you 
again ! He who gave me means to care for you in your 
childhood is ever good and powerful. Now that you have 
suffered in His cause, He will not let you want for any- 
thing. You will draw down His benediction on this house 
and on your aged parents." 

"Yes, dear parents," responded Mother St. John, "do 
not be uneasy : we shall not want anything while we 



ioo Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

dwell with you ; and later on God will know how to pro- 
vide for our necessities. We will work in order to second 
Divine Providence ; and then, have we not made a vow 
of poverty ? "We will practise it after the example of our 
Divine Master, and it will be sweet to suffer something for 
His love, since we have not been found worthy to die for 
Him." 

Thus did parents and children, — rivals in faith and vir- 
tue — render their common abode a veritable sanctuary 
of perfection. So great was the odor of the sanctity prac- 
tised therein by the religious, that its remembrance was 
transmitted from father to son as a most precious family 
inheritance. " I remember well," says one of Mother St. 
John's nieces, " that when we were very young, our father 
used to tell us often about Mother St. John and her rare 
virtue. Hearing those recitals, our hearts were deeply 
touched and filled with a desire to please our saintly aunt by 
our good conduct, for he made us feel that she was watch- 
ing us from her throne in Heaven. Such a thought had 
great influence over us ; our prayers were better said, our 
tasks more readily accomplished, and our obedience more 
prompt and cheerful." 

Happy those families who possess Saints ! Happy the 
parents who, after the example of Anna, the mother of 
Samuel, delight in consecrating their children to God, at 
least by rearing them in a Christian manner ! The pious 
Catholic child is the glory, the consolation, the crown, the 
perfume, the benediction of home. Now this Christian 
education, as we know, is what hell unmercifully attacks 
at present, by its impious or atheistical agents who have 
the upper hand. Their end they disguise under the name 
of secular or unsectarian education. But when they do 
away with the idea of God, they not only secularize the 
soul of the child, they pervert, they degrade, they kill it. 

Let us hope that the spirit of Christian France will re- 



The Effect of Christian Education. ioi 

sist such a crime. " Christian feeling/' exclaims Father 
Felix, "is the natural respiration of France." May its 
enemies fail in their attempts to stifle that which has made 
her heretofore so strong, so grand, so beautiful ! 




CHAPTER VI. 

Mother St. John's retirement. — Her holy works. — Mgr. de Gallard, 
from the place of his exile, writes to his dispersed daughters, 
the Sisters of St. Joseph. 

IDDEN from the world, Mother St. John and 
her companions spent their days of exile in re- 
ligious austerity, prayer, and continual union 
with God, praying incessantly for the Church and unhap- 
py France. Her heart, to use the words of a Saint, was an 
altar whereon the flame of Divine love was never extin- 
guished. Faithful to the spirit of her Institute, with 
prayer she united action, catechising children and the ig- 
norant, visiting the sick and prisoners, and procuring for 
the dying the last rites of the Church. This latter work, 
as precious as it was difficult in those times of persecution, 
seems to have been her favorite employment. 

By such means — as the ark of the ancient covenant 
guarded the tables of the law — did her faithful heart, in 
view of the new alliance for which she so longed and 
prayed, preserve silently and carefully the traditions, 
zeal, and spirit of the Institute in which she had conse- 
crated to God the flower of her youth. The heart Avlrich 
had so ardently longed for the immolation of mart} T rdom, 
became, by the ardor of its desires, as the altar of holo- 
causts, whereon, according to the law, was to burn, undy- 
ing, the sacred flame. Hence, when peace was restored to 
the Church of France, and the hour for reopening the 
sacred temples, and re-enkindling with the lamps of the 
sanctuary the torch of the religious life, had dawned, 



Mgr. de Gallard's Letter. 103 

Mother St. John joossessed within herself, living and pure, 
that flame which was to enlighten and adorn the recon- 
structed Congregation of St. Joseph. She was, to use the 
expression of the Sisters of St. Joseph in America, " the 
vessel of election, pre-ordained by God for the re-establish- 
ment of the Congregation." 

Dispersed as then was the Institute of St. Joseph, it 
was not wholly forgotten by its absent Pastor and Father, 
who preserved, even amid the sorrows and trials of exile, a 
lively remembrance of his persecuted daughters, whose 
works of zeal and devotedness had given them a lasting 
claim on his esteem and affection. 

In 1798, they had the inexpressible consolation of receiv- 
ing from Mgr. de Gallard, the banished Bishop of Le 
Puy, a letter conveying encouragement and direction 
under the trials they had to encounter. "\Ye subjoin, in its 
entirety, this document, worthy of the apostolic times, and 
so honorable to the Sisters of St. Joseph : 
" My beloved Daughters: 

" You have such sacred rights to my thoughts and affec- 
tions, you have merited them on so many glorious titles 
— your virtues and my obligations ; your examples and my 
desire for good ; your tribulations and my sympathy ; your 
hearts and mine — all speak to you of my tenderness, all 
warrant my lively and continual solicitude in your regard. 

"As the eyes of the Lord are always fixed upon the just, 
and the ears of His mercy ever open to their prayers, so I 
dare also to say, my beloved children, my eyes are inces- 
santly turned towards you, and my sorrowful heart hears, 
ever, the cries that .proceed from yours. I remember (and, 
oh, how could I forget ?) that you are that precious portion 
of my inheritance, alwa3 T s so dear to me and ever so 
worthy of my affection. You are, in my eyes, the chosen 
race, the holy people, object of the complacency of Heav- 
en, since in dragging you forth from your sacred retreats, 



104 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

impiety has not been able to rob the God of all purity of 
His true sanctuaries, that is, your hearts consecrated by 
virginity. 

" Up to this time, the enemy of virtue and all good has 
failed in his efforts to shake your constancy. Worthy 
Spouses of Jesus Christ, like Mary you remain standing 
at the foot of the Cross, nor have you ever recoiled from 
the chalice of sorrow and opprobrium which Jesus has in- 
cessantly presented to your lips. my beloved daughters, 
rejoice in the Lord and praise Him for all those sorrows 
which render you like unto your Divine Spouse, for all 
those triumphs by which Heaven crowns your invincible 
firmness ! 

" Jealous of your glory, dismayed at the strength of your 
virtues, humbled by your courage, the spirit of lies and 
deceit again assails you. By his efforts to annoy you and 
weary out your patience, he believes he has almost exhausted 
it ; and he seems to have given you over, during these 
times, to all the suffering and horrors of want, only to 
force you to bend the knee to the idol of crime and im- 
piety, and compel you to sacrifice to him the immortal 
fruits of all you have had to undergo ; for one cannot be 
deceived as to the views of the powers of darkness : they 
have themselves torn aside the false veil that sometimes 
covers their artifices. 

" All these means tend but to one end ; it is always the 
same : to efface from souls every trace of virtue and relig- 
ion. As the wicked can find no rest, they can give 
none ; if they flatter, it is to destroy ; if they promise, it 
is to deceive ; if they give, it is to corrupt. Ah, could 
you believe that the voice of justice and humanity would be 
heard in those hearts hardened to every noble sentiment, 
as well as to remorse ? 

" See how they have treated, how they still treat those 
strong ones of Israel, who, by degenerating from their first 



Mgi'. de GallarcPs Letter. 105 

fervor, have had the weakness to yield to their promises or 
threats ! What has been the result of their complaisance ? 
They have increased the boldness and strength of im- 
piet}', brought division into the camp of Israel, and scan- 
dalized the little ones of the faith. Behold what have been 
the fatal effects of those acts, whose perfidy was concealed 
by either avarice or terror ! 

e( The chief pastors have constantly revealed it ; and 
what remains to those who have preferred their own lights 
to those of our guides and chiefs ? The bitter regret of 
having increased the woes of religion and their country, 
under the vain pretence of lightening them, and the 
shame of having trusted more in the lying promises of the 
deceiving spirit, than in the oracles of those who have re- 
ceived from Heaven the mission to unmask and confound 
him. 

" Instructed as you are, my dear children, by these fatal 
examples, — the subject, we doubt not, of your tears as of 
ours, — far from me be the thought that you would allow 
yourselves to be deceived by the new snare which is spread 
before you by the enemy of your virtue and happiness ! 
What attraction in your eyes could there be for a gift 
offered you by hands as perfidious as they are sacrilegious, 
and which you could accept only at the expense of 
your conscience ? Who, better than you, knows what 
St. Paul said to the early faithful : " You cannot 
be partakers of the table of the Lord, and of the table 
of devils : you cannot drink the chalice of the Lord, and 
the chalice of devils'" ? 

" The state of distress in which I see you, my dear 
children, pierces me to the heart, and in my personal in- 
digence, I feel only the powerlessness in which it leaves 
me to succor you ; but habituated as you are to privations 
and sacrifices of every kind ; accustomed to contemplate 
our Divine Model, who had not whereon to lay His head ; 



io6 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne. 

penetrated with love and confidence in our Heavenly 
Father, who feeds the birds of the air, you will cast your- 
selves into the vast bosom of His Providence, and will ex- 
pect from His infinite goodness alone the reward of the 
sacrifices you have already made, and are still ready to 
make for His great glory and the sanctity of your state. 

" How holy and profound, my beloved daughters, are the 
designs of God over us, when He permits the impious to 
violate the sanctuaries of virginity, and scatter their stones 
in the midst of a perverse world ! Heaven has willed to 
make you a spectacle to angels and to men. You are as 
the seeds of flowers caught up by the wind and dropped in 
city, in country, even into the bosom of your own families, 
that you may bear everywhere the good odor of Jesus 
Christ. 

" Called to a mission so sublime, and proved so worthy 
of fulfilling it, can I fear from you any weakness ? No, 
my beloved children ; the true glory of virgins is " to fol- 
low the Lamb whithersoever He goeth." You have had 
the happiness of following Him in the path of His sorrows 
and humiliations ; the greater number of you can, like the 
Apostle, glory in bearing on your innocent flesh the stigma- 
ta of Jesus Christ ; you all envy the fate of your blessed 
companions who have followed the Divine Spouse even unto 
Calvary, and who, after His example, have consummated 
thereon their sacrifice, praying for their persecutors and 
the executioners who murdered them. Ah, I have the 
firmest confidence that I shall yet share with the Spouse of 
your souls the inestimable consolation of having in you 
my crown and my glory ! 

" Persuaded that impiety seeks only a pretext to enkindle 
against you the fires of another persecution, I am not af- 
frighted at the new dangers that threaten you. There is 
no question of danger for you ; but, while groaning in all 
the bitterness of my soul over the additional sufferings 



Mgr. de G altar d^s Letter. 107 

that may be heaped upon you, I dare to congratulate you 
on being always judged worthy to suffer for justice' sake, 
and I congratulate myself on being the pastor of so many 
heroic souls, called to the double crown of virginity and 
martyrdom. 

i ' I unite myself, my cherished children, to your combats 
and your victories, your tribulations and your favors. Let 
us humble ourselves beneath the almighty hand of God 
who visits us. Let us leave to Him our cares and our solic- 
itudes, and even in the very midst of suffering, we shall 
find our surety, our protection, and our strength in the 
God of all grace, who has called us to His eternal glory in 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

"Given at the place of our exile, July 19th, 1798." 

Does not this letter, so replenished with faith, wisdom, 
and holy sweetness, remind us of the admirable epistles of 
St. John ? Nothing can equal the paternal tenderness of 
apostolic hearts for the spiritual children whom they have 
" engendered in faith and the Gospel." " Corinthians," 
wrote St. Paul to his beloved spiritual family in Corinth, 
" our mouth is open to you, our heart is enlarged. You 
are not straitened in us, but in your own bowels you are 

straitened .... I speak to you as my children 

Great is my confidence with you, great is my glorying for 
you. I am filled with comfort." * 

The great hearts of John, Paul, and the other apostles 
were the golden channels of that Christian charity whose 
source is on Calvary and which is to flow through the 
apostolate and the Tabernacle until the end of the world, 
to purify and save it. 

In the relations that existed between the venerable Bish- 
op of Le Puy and the Sisters of St. Joseph, we see revived, 
in a very atmosphere of selfishness and hate, the spirit of 

1 II. Cor. vi. vii. 



10S Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

apostolic times, when Christians had but " one heart and 
one soul," so that the pagans, ravished at so beautiful a 
spectacle, cried out, " Behold how these Christians love 
one another ! " 

This apostolic letter of Mgr. de Gallard, like that of Eev. 
Father Medaille, is as honorable as it is instructive to the 
Sisters of St. Joseph. Both breathe eloquently the spirit of 
the Congregation, — its humility, zeal, and devotedness. 
Let us, then, here remind its members of those words of the 
Holy Spirit : (i Eemember those who were placed at your 
head. My son, forget not the discipline of your fathers." 
" Follow the examples of the Saints," says the Imitation, 
and listen to the words of the aged. 



•mrntr mook. 



Mother St. John after the Revolution. — 
Foundation, Unification, and Organi- 
zation of the Sisters of St. 
Joseph of Lyons. 

CHAPTER I. 

The time designed by Providence for the restoration of the Con- 
gregation of St. Joseph arrives. — Mother St. John is called to 
Saint-Etienne. — Community of the Rue de la Bourse. — The 
Sisters resume the religious habit. 

S we have already seen, the paternal home to which 
the revolution had restored, or, rather, exiled 
Mother St. John, became for her a place of re- 




treat, where, by persevering and inviolable fidelity to her 
obligations as a true religions and daughter of St. Joseph, 
she was, unconsciously, fitting herself to be the worthy in- 
strument of Divine Providence for the great work of the 
restoration of her beloved Congregation, a restoration which 
was to be, in truth, a re-creation by the new form and ad- 
mirable extension given to it. In her hands and under her 
supervision and direction, but humbly and quietly, without 
any outward show, the Congregation of St. Joseph was to 
become one of those great spiritual families which " rejoice, 
enrich, honor, perfume, and make fruitful the Church," 
as the glorious Bride of Christ herself sings in her office for 
the festivals of canonized founders of religious Orders. 



i io Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

After twelve years of prayers and tears, and of ardent 
holy longings, the moment marked ont by God came at 
last. In 1807, God called Mother St. John to the city of 
Saint-Etienne, in Forez, where, as formerly in Puy, He had 
sown the little grain of mustard-seed, which she was to 
cultivate and increase. 

This germ of the Congregation of St. Joseph consisted 
of some pious young girls and former members of religious 
Orders, who had assembled together to consecrate them- 
selves to the service of God, to aid and mutually animate 
one another in the practice of perfect virtue, and to devote 
themselves, night and day, to the alleviation of human mis- 
eries, multiplied a hundred-fold by the ravages of the Rev- 
olution. They had established themselves at Saint-Etienne, 
in the Rue de la Bourse, where they were known as the 
Black Sisters, from the color of their secular dress ; or Sis- 
ters of a Good Death, as the care of the sick and dying was 
one of their favorite works. Rev. Claude Cholleton, cure 
of the principal parish of Saint-Etienne, who, in 1804, had 
been appointed Vicar-General, approved their pious and 
charitable design, and seconded it to the best of his power. 
Having consulted His Eminence, Cardinal Eesoh, then 
Archbishop of Lyons, on the subject, that prelate strongly 
advised him to transform the little association into a house 
of the Sisters of St. Joseph, not by creating a new Congrega- 
tion, but by restoring, as far as might be, that founded at 
Le Puy, but destroyed by the late tempest. That zealous 
and powerful prince of the Church promised to further the 
design as far as lay in his power, and he became, in reality, 
one of the greatest protectors and benefactors of St. Jos- 
eph's Institute. 

Acting on the Cardinal's suggestion, Father Cholleton, 
with his consent, invited to Saint-Etienne Mother St. 
John, whose signal merit and rare qualities had been made 
known to him by Rev. Father Imbert, a Franciscan, her 



She is Called to Saint- Etienne. 1 1 1 

former director at Monistrol, who was then preaching the 
Lenten sermons at Lyons. Her parents, greatly enfeebled 
by age, could not bring themselves to sacrifice a second time 
her who, like the young Tobias, was " the light of their 
eyes, the staff of their old age, and the consolation of their 
life." Anxious at all hazards to keep her treasure, the aged 
mother tried to lessen the esteem in which her daughter 
was held, telling the priest that she was not at all capable 
of doing what he desired, since she was very deficient in 
judgment ; but this little ruse of maternal love rendered 
desperate, was easily seen through ; it was well known that, 
on the contrary, common sense and sure and solid judgment 
were the dominant characteristics, the distinctive traits of 
Mother St. John. 

Nor was the daughter, on her part, willing to undertake 
the work thus urged upon her. She resisted, partly on 
account of the sorrow and loneliness such a separation 
would entail on her aged parents, but more, because 
her humility dreaded the title and responsibilities of re- 
storer, or foundress, which, she foresaw, would be the nec- 
essary consequence of the task imposed on her. Obe- 
dience, however, finally triumphed, and submitting to 
the will of God, revealed through her ecclesiastical Superi- 
ors, she went to Saint-Etienne on the 14th of August, 1807, 
accompanied by her faithful Sister Martha. To lessen, as 
far as in her power, the anguish of the separation, she left 
her beloved Sister Teresa to be the consolation of her 
parents, and the staff of their declining years. 

At Saint-Etienne she was received as an angel from Heaven 
by the little community which so eagerly longed to greet 
her as their Mother. With indefatigable zeal she set her- 
self to train her religious in the manner of life of the first 
Sisters of St. Joseph, and to impart to them that prim- 
itive spirit which she had so sedulously cultivated within 
her own breast. And worthily did the fervent subjects re- 



ii2 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

spond to the wishes of their Superior. Nothing could be 
more edifying than the spectacle presented by the newly- 
organized community, in which were revived the austerities 
and heroic traditions of the early days of the faith. Each 
occupied herself, according to her skill and aptitude, in 
some of the works to be found in a manufacturing city, 
observing, meanwhile, the most absolute silence, the most 
perfect regularity. Prayer was continual, fasts frequent 
and severe, the discipline and cilice in daily use. As in the 
ancient Thebaic!, or at Citeaux in the days of St. Bernard, 
they practised the evangelical counsels in their utmost rigor. 
Wine and everything that could flatter the appetite was 
banished from their table, and Mother St. John, to whom 
the use of snuff had become a necessity and very beneficial, 
sacrificed it also. 

)Ime. Teissier (Mother St. John's sister) and her hus- 
band were then living in Saint-Etienne. Perfect Christians, 
as they were, they knew and appreciated the merit, value, 
and supernatural advantages of Christian mortification ; 
they themselves embraced suffering in the most edifying 
manner, because, beneath its gloom and shadow, they re- 
cognized the beauty of Divine love, so that they admir- 
ably understood the words of St. Teresa : "To sutler or to 
die." 

Nevertheless, they were surprised and terrified at the 
austerities practised by the religious. " my sister," 
Mme. Teissier would say ; "you do not eat enough here 
to live ; your health will never be able to bear such 
privations," to which Mother St. John would answer 
gayly : " Oh, don't be at all uneasy ; one must suffer some- 
thing, you know, for the love of our Lord, who suffered 
so much for us. " And though these charitable friends strove 
by their gifts to lessen somewhat the austerities of the 
Sisters' table, the poor became the greatest gainers thereby. 

Not content with fasts, the Sisters used to sleep on the 



Austerities Pi'actised by her Sisters. 1 13 

floor, on pallets, or on boards, some, indeed, on planks stud- 
ded with iron nails; they prolonged far into the night their 
painful vigils, and rose before the crowing of the cock. 
Mother St. John was often obliged to moderate her daugh- 
ters'' thirst for mortification and penance ; and when, later, 
the ecclesiastical Superiors judged it necessary to modify 
their manner of life, and restore the simpler primitive ob- 
servances of the Congregation, she took from the Sisters 
an extraordinary number of iron bracelets, cinctures, 
chains, disciplines, and all sorts of instruments of penance. 
Surprising as it may seem to those who know not the hid- 
den sweetness of the cross, that life of privation and self- 
immolation was one of delightful peace and joy : a life of 
continual gladness, the very remembrance of which 
soothed the declining years of those who had spent their 
youth therein. " Oh, how happy we were ! " exclaims, 
later, one of those voluntary victims ; " how happy we 
were, wearing that coarse habit, which so often won for us 
the contempt and insults of the passers-by ! Our humble, 
penitent, and mortified life concealed treasures of benedic- 
tions and celestial joys not to be found elsewhere." She who 
spoke thus was a lady endowed with the rarest gifts of na- 
ture and grace, who, in 1805, at the age of twenty, had 
embraced that life crucified and hidden in Jesus Christ. 
At her reception to the religious habit, in 1808, she was 
given the same patron as her venerable Superior, and under 
the blessed name of Sister St. John, founded afterwards 
the Congregation of Chambery, as we shall see in the course 
of this work. 

Two young postulants having, on one occasion, been 
sent by Mother St. John to inform a venerable priest, 
deeply interested in them, that they were about to receive 
the religious habit, he very kindly inquired if, under the 
strict rules of the house, sufficient food, at least, was giv- 
en. (i Oh, don't be at all uneasy about that, Father," 



114 Life of Rev. Mother St John Font bonne. 

they answered merrily ; " at dinner we always have five 
courses," which, however, they failed to specify. The 
courses were : soup, a dish of vegetables, a piece of cheese, 
bread, and water mingled with a little milk. The priest, 
satisfied that five courses were, at least, enough for the 
dinner of a religious, inquired no further. Coming in 
that day after the community meal was over, the two 
novices found, before the kitchen grate, their share of a 
plate of macaroni all covered with cinders which had fal- 
len unperceived. Happy to imitate those Saints who had 
mixed ashes with their food in order to diminish its savor, 
they contented themselves with picking off the biggest 
cinders, and cheerfully ate the rest. " Another time," said 
they laughingly, " we shall be able to say truthfully that 
our dinner comprises six courses." 

As sweetness is often the amiable companion of strength, 
so joy is always the complement of Christian mortification. 
Nothing is more admirable and, at the same time, more 
logical, than this joy of souls crucified by Divine love. "If 
there be joy in the world," says the author of the Imita- 
tion, " surely the man pure of heart possesseth it." Now 
purity and true liberty are the fruits of Christian mortifi- 
cation and renunciation. " The most terrible enemy of the 
soul," continues the same pious author, "is the body. 
Those who flatter it live in servitude. They are like 
prisoners loaded with fetters. 1 Christian mortification 
removes the stain, breaks asunder the chains of sin, and 
gives the freedom of the children of God, as has been ad- 
mirably expressed by a holy religious in the following 
couplet : — 

" The body is enchained, the soul at liberty ; 
The iron of time becomes the gold of eternity." 

It is not, then, surprising that from the interior of that 

1 Imit., Bk. II., 4; Bk. III., 13-21. 



Adoption of the Former Habit. 115 

little Thebaid, which, was the cradle of the second founda- 
tion of St. Joseph's Institute, there issued only songs of 
gladness, hymns of praise and thanksgiving to God. 

But that happiness attained its height when, on the 14th 
of July, 1808, the fervent Community, laying aside the 
secular dress so regretfully worn, were invested with the 
habit of the former Congregation of the Sisters of St. 
Joseph. Rev. M. Piron, an intrepid confessor of the 
faith, addressing the new religious, said: i( You are, in- 
deed, but few, yet like a swarm of bees, you shall spread 
yourselves everywhere. Your number shall be as the stars 
of Heaven. But, while you thus increase, preserve always 
that humility and simplicity which should characterize the 
Daughters of St. Joseph." 

On that memorable occasion, Mother St. John renewed 
her youth like that of the eagle, and her spirit of activ- 
ity gave a great impulse to the progress of the work. 
God was with her, enlightening her understanding, cloth- 
ing her with His strength, and communicating to her His 
wisdom. Kind without weakness, firm without severity, 
prudent yet large-hearted in her estimation of character, 
she arranged all things with weight and measure. While 
her great sanctity and amiable qualities drew souls to her, 
her knowledge and experience won their confidence ; and 
her admirable gift of discernment taught her how to dis- 
tinguish the action of grace in the very midst of the mis- 
eries, weakness, and contradictions of nature. In every- 
body she could discern something good; so that it might 
be said she was like the bee, which sucks honey from even 
the bitterest plants. She knew how to weigh facts and 
motives ; to judge, to understand, to love ; in a word, she 
was, as our Lord says of the great Saint whose name she 
bore : ' e A burning and shining lamp in the house of 
God." Full well she understood that authority, in order to 
be like that of God, which is its source, must ever unite 



1 1 6 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

sweetness and goodness with strength ; and, led by the 
spirit of God, she endeavored to carry out the recommend- 
ation of St. Ambrose : Moderation in difficulties and 
business ; order in affairs ; seasonableness in time ; con- 
sideration in words. 



CHAPTER II. 

Mother St. John reopens the Asylum at Monistrol. — She restores 
the convent of St. Joseph and appoints a Superior. — The Gov- 
ernment approves the Community of the Rue de la Bourse. — 
Opening of a House in Lyons. — The Community of Mi-Cargme 
at Saint-Etienne. 




HILE thus developing her work at Saint- 
Etienne, Mother St. John had not forgotten 
Monistrol, to which her heart was so strongly 
attached, and, like St. Paul, she could have said to her 
spiritual daughters : " Our mouth is open to you ; our 
heart is enlarged. You are not straitened in us." 

Time had brought her its lessons and experience ; and 
in the meanwhile, better days had dawned on that poor 
town, to which so much evil had been brought even by 
those whose office it was to do good. A holy and zealous 
pastor had replaced him who, to use the expression 
of Benedict XIV., had been " a wolf in the fold," lujyus in 
grege. This good priest set himself zealously to repair the 
ravages of impiety ; and to assure his success, engaged as 
auxiliaries the Sisters of St. Joseph, who had formerly done 
so much for Monistrol. More fortunate than the Convent, 
the asylum, founded as we have seen by Mgr. de Gallard 
and Mme. de Chantemule, had not been sequestrated dur- 
ing the Eevolution, and hence it was easy to restore it to 
its original charitable destination. 

Mother St. John's faithful companion, Sister Martha, 
who had formerly been employed there, was still remem- 
bered as the mother of the orphans, and it was decided 



1 1 8 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

that she should resume her work. To the orphans and 
the poor her restoration was a kind of family festival ; 
but when it became known that Mother St. John herself 
would accompany and reinstall her beloved daughter, the 
public joy was unbounded. Her entrance into the town 
was a triumph ; the inhabitants flocked about her path ; 
some wept for joy at again beholding her, while others 
uttered fervent prayers that Providence would restore her 
to a people who regarded her as a mother. But the holy 
Superior of the little Thebaid of Saint-Etienne belonged 
not to herself. Divine Providence had chosen her for a 
greater and more arduous work. 

As to Sister Martha, she remained until death at Monis- 
trol, devoting herself with ever-increasing charity to the so- 
lace of the unfortunate, whose servant she had become. She 
is still remembered at the scene of her labors as a humble, 
fervent, and charitable religious, whose highest eulogy is : 
" She proved herself the worthy daughter of Mother St. 
John." 

The asylum thus re-established, God afforded Mother St. 
John the great consolation of being able, in conjunction 
with the worthy parish-priest, to purchase from its revolu- 
tionary proprietors her former convent, the cherished home 
of her early religious life. Nothing could have given her 
greater joy, and she hastened to recall her former daugh- 
ters to their beloved home. 

Who can describe the feelings of rapture and thanksgiv- 
ing with which that little flock, so rudely separated, pre- 
pared to re-enter their blessed convent-fold ? Who can tell 
with what delight the Mother looked for the spiritual chil- 
dren for whom her heart had so hungered ? Kevolution, the 
disturbance of the times, and death had, as might be expect- 
ed, decreased their number, and hence Mother St. John 
took with her to Monistrol Sister Gonzaga and Sister Saint 
Louis, the latter of whom she intended to appoint Superior. 



Restoration of the Convent of St. Joseph. 1 19 

On re-entering that home of so many peaceful and hap- 
py memories, and while embracing, with all the ardor of 
maternal affection, her long-lost children, the Mother could 
not restrain her tears. " my beloved children," she ex- 
claimed, " what a sweet consolation to behold yon once 
more assembled together in this dear home, the witness of 
our holy engagements, of our Christian and religious joys 
as well as of our sad and terrible trials ! Blessed be God, 
who has restored you to my love and tenderness ! You 
have been firm and unshaken under your trials ; you will 
be no less fervent in your holy vocation. 

" Eemember, my beloved daughters, the holy and pater- 
nal exhortations made to us in this house by our saintly 
Bishop de Gallard. Oh, may his spirit live ever among 
you ! From the height of Heaven, where God now rec- 
ompenses his heroic virtues, he intercedes for us, he 
blesses us. I leave you here his portrait ; it is his legacy ; 
it will ever remind you of this great and venerable prelate 
and father. 

" I leave you, moreover, a good and kind Superior. Love 
and obey her, follow her advice, and you will complete 
the joy of your former Mother, now grown old, who loves 
you so tenderly and truly in our Lord." 

The good cure, after welcoming the Sisters in the most 
cordial manner, blessed the convent profaned during the 
Revolution, and promised his fatherly care, protection, 
and concurrence in all their works. His most ardent wish 
had been to provide for the religious education of the 
children, hoping thus to repair the evils brought on their 
fathers by the late unhappy strife ; and this he saw could 
best be effected by the labors of the Sisters. 

His parishioners, too, congratulated themselves on pos- 
sessing again the nuns, whose dispersion had given them 
such poignant anguish ; many, even, of those who had 
shared in the late excesses, enlightened as to their true 



120 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

character, repented of their errors and joined in the 
general jubilation. 

After Mother St. Louis's installation, Mother St. John 
remained a few days longer in the midst of her restored 
children, who seemed as though they could not see or hear 
enough of her. Her holy example, her pious exhortations, 
reanimated all hearts, and revived their courage, so that 
the community recommenced its labors and resumed its 
former mission with all the spirit and fervor of its early 
days, thus accomplishing literally this counsel of the Imi- 
tation : " Every day we ought to renew our purpose, and 
stir ourselves up to fervor, as if it were the first day of our 
conversion. And to say : Help me, Lord God, in my 
holy purpose, and in Thy holy service, and grant that I 
may this day begin, indeed, since what I have hitherto 
done is nothing." 1 

Clothed with the mantle and spirit of her venerable 
Superior, Mother St. Louis continued to prosecute the 
works she had begun. Following her counsels and walk- 
ing in her footsteps, she maintained in that house the 
spirit of fervor and regularity, so that its work was visibly 
blessed by God, and such numbers of pupils flocked to the 
establishment that it had soon to be enlarged. 

When blessing His people God said by the mouth of His 
prophet : "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and stretch 
out the skins of thy tabernacles, spare not : lengthen thy 
cords and strengthen thy stakes. Eor thou shalt pass on 
to the right hand and to the left : and thy seed shall in- 
herit the Gentiles." 2 This fruitful benediction was granted 
to the Sisters at Monistrol. 

While carrying on, both in the convent and asylum, 
the work rendered necessary by this happy increase, the 
corner-stone formerly blessed by both Bishop de Gallard 

1 Imit., Bk. I., 19. 2 Isaias liv. 2, 3. 



Dedication of the New Build tugs. 121 

and Mother St. John was found. As we may well believe, 
it was removed, with great respect, to where it now rests, 
over the entrance to the Sisters' sacristy, which opens on 
the private grounds of the community. There, silently 
yet eloquently, it seems to repeat to the Daughters of St. 
Joseph this admonition of the Holy Spirit: "Remember 
your prelates who have spoken the word of God to you ; " 1 
remember those who have been your fathers and mothers 
in the faith; and, considering their conduct and the end 
of their lives, imitate their faith and their spirit of anion. 

After the completion of the new buildings, Mother St. 
John joyfully responded to the invitation to be present at 
their dedication, little dreaming of what her consent was 
to cost her. For the parish-priest, who had heard of Mgr. 
de Gallard's act under like circumstances, at the conclu- 
sion of the liturgical benediction insisted that Mother St. 
John should give her blessing to the new construction; 
and, great as was her confusion, she was again obliged to 
obey. 

During her sojourn at Monistrol, Mother St. John let 
no day pass without visiting the Asylum, where she was 
accustomed to assemble her beloved poor around her, 
speaking to them individually, and, like an affectionate 
mother, inquiring into the trials, sorrows, and health of 
each. "Oh, how happy we used to be," the old men 
have often been heard exclaiming, " when the Eev. 
Mother came to see us ! It was a struggle as to who 
should get nearest to her, speak to her, look at her, and 
receive that smile so sweet and so full of charity." 

As the Asylum was in great need of a pharmacy, 
Mother St. John summoned from Lyons Sister St. Hila- 
rion, a person well skilled in the requirements of such 
a charge, who established the same and presided over it 

1 Heb. xiii. 7, 



122 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne. 

until her death; around her name still lingers the per- 
fume of her charity to the poor and distressed, and of her 
sanctity, as well as that of all those early daughters of 
Mother St. John who had passed through the fiery ordeal 
of persecution, the people of Monistrol long preserved the 
memory. The Rev. Mother, however, they venerated as a 
Saint, placing the greatest reliance on her prayers and 
assistance, as the following incident goes to prove. 

A young lady of that town possessed a silver cross which 
her uncle, the cure of Bas, had received from Mother St. 
John. She preserved it reverently as a precious relic, 
keeping it on her person day and night, as a blessing and 
a preservative against possible danger. Having, on one 
occasion, when on a journey, been overtaken by a violent 
storm, at some distance from Monistrol, she was in great 
danger. When warned before her departure of the im- 
pending tempest, she had answered: "1 shall not be un- 
easy, for I have Mother St. John's cross with me." When, 
then, she found herself in the depth of, the woods, exposed 
to the fury of the elemeiitsVshe ferventty' clasped *irer* ; pi T e*- 
cious talisman, and interiorly invoked the venerable Mother 
St. John. "I was not at all terrified," said she afterwards, 
" for I knew our holy Mother would protect me." Nor 
was she disappointed ; she passed safe and unhurt through 
the forest, and arrived home, to find her family over- 
whelmed with fear and dread on her account. 

This firm and unshaken confidence in the sanctity and 
protection of Mother St. John was not confined to Monistrol 
alone, but was general in Saint-Etienne, Lyons, and other 
places where she was intimately known. 

If the visits of the venerable Superior to Monistrol 
tended always to render the members of that community 
more holy and their works more fruitful, her constant resi- 
dence at the Rue de la Bourse in Saint-Etienne, and the 
care which she devoted to the training and direction of 



The Co mm u n ity of Mi- Ca reme. 123 

that community, drew on it the special blessings of 
Heaven, blessings by which God was preparing that 
convent for marvellous and unlooked-for development. 

On the 10th of April, 1812, the establishment received 
the authorization of the government. Some time later, 
Father Oholleton, having been appointed Vicar-General of 
Lyons, summoned to that city some of his dear daughters 
of St. Joseph, and confided to them the direction of an 
establishment in the Rue St. Pierre-le-Vieux, near the 
Cathedral, founded for the relief of the poor of four 
parishes. Mother St. Paul was named Superior of that 
community, in which was afterwards received and trained 
to the religious life the celebrated Mother St. Joseph, 
whom grace adorned with such extraordinary supernatural 
gifts, and to whose zeal, rendered fruitful by the blessing 
of God, so many great works are due. Of these works we 
shall give a brief account later on. 

In the city of Saint-Etienne there then existed, besides 
the convent in the Rue de la Bourse, another association 
of pious young ladies, under the government of Mile. 
Benneyton, who were anxious to form themselves into a 
cloistered community. Their wish coincided with that of 
Rev. Father Piron, the cure of the parish; but by the 
advice of the Archbishop of Lyons, they, in 1808, applied 
to the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Rue de la Bourse to be 
received as novices into that Congregation. 

On the 20th of April, 1809, they were clothed with the 
habit of St. Joseph, in the chapel lately constructed at Mi- 
Car erne, and Mother St. Paul, recalled from Lyons, was 
appointed their Superior. 

This, in the designs of Providence, was the House destined 
to carry on at Saint-Etienne the work of St. Joseph; for 
a short time afterwards, the Sisters of the Rue de la Bourse 
were dispersed on different missions. Several were sent 
to a house at Valbenoite; others accompanied Mother St, 



124 L ife of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

John when she was called to Lyons to found the Mother 
House; while to others was intrusted the direction of 
the various Providences founded throughout Saint-Etienne 
by ladies of the city, under the title of Ladies of Mercy. 1 

In this same convent of Mi-Careme was to be received, 
clothed with the religious habit, and professed, some years 
later, Margaret Mary Virginia Tezenas du Montcel, known 
better as Rev. Mother Sacred Heart of Jesus, the successor 
of Rev. Mother St. John in the government of Lyons, 
she whom Mgr. Plantier, Bishop of Nismes, has called 
"the second foundress" of St. Joseph's Institute. At pres- 
ent, the establishment of Mi-Careme, which numbers sixty 
religious, is, after the Mother House, the most important 
under the government of Lyons. None better than it 
preserves the primitive spirit of St. Joseph, imparted by 
Mother St. John in the Rue de la Bourse, renewed by 
Mother Sacred Heart, and continued successively by those 
daughters so worthy of her, Mother Euphrasia and the late 
Superior-General of the Congregation at Lyons, Mother 
Emilie. 2 

It was this spirit of humility, simplicity, renunciation, 
devotedness, and tender love for our Lord which led the 



1 Some Sisters of St. Joseph, designated by Mother St. John, established themselves 
in a little local Institution, where they took care of the children. Sister St. Am- 
brose, former Mistress of Novices in the Rue de la Bourse, founded in the Rue de 
la Cttarite the first orphan asylum of that city. This was afterwards transferred to 
the Providence of Sainte Marie. The first President was Mme. Jovin des Hayes, 
but its life, its animating spirit, its visible Providence was Mile. Balay, the intimate 
friend of Virginia T6z6nas du Montcel (Mother Sacred Heart); her heart is still 
preserved in the jChapel of the Providence. In the records of all the charitable 
foundations of Saint-Etienne under the Sisters of St. Joseph, notably in the work 
Du Pieux-Secours and the Refuge, to which Mother Sacred Heart gave her pri- 
vate fortune, we find the names of noble benefactors, who vied with each other in 
charitable donations and munificent bequests. 

It was of such Christians as these the Apostle formerly said : " They have gen- 
erously assisted me and also our brethren the poor ; they have labored much in 
Jesus Christ for the work of God and for the advancement of His kingdom in souls, 
and their names, blessed of God and man, are written in the Book of Life. 1 ' 

2 Pied March 18, 1886, at the Mother House of Lyons. 



The Community of Mi-Careme. 125 

Sisters of Mi-Careme to call their chapel, their salon. In 
that convent religions simplicity was strictly preserved 
everywhere, save in that beloved spot where reposed the 
God of their hearts, the Sponse of their love. There, as 
doubtless Mary and Joseph had done in Nazareth, they 
denied themselves to consecrate to Jesus the best their 
poverty could afford. 

In Nazareth, Mary, whose hands, according to St. 
Epiphanius, were as skilful as industrious in labor, wove for 
her beloved child that seamless robe for whose possession the 
soldiers quarrelled and cast lots on Calvary. Ah, well in- 
deed does the care of that sanctuary which holds her Jesus 
suit the daughter of St. Joseph : it is the spirit of Nazareth ! 

At the head of the schools of Saint -Etienne, the numer- 
ous and zealous community of Mi-Careme to-day de- 
fend valiantly the cause of God, and strive to maintain 
the female sex in that dignity and nobility to which Jesus, 
the Son of Mary, has elevated it. And is it not eminent- 
ly fitting that the Daughters of St. Joseph should co-oper- 
ate in this work with Him who has deigned to claim the 
same father ? Happy, indeed, thrice happy those religious 
who thoroughly understand and faithfully fulfil their 
double mission : to love Jesus themselves, and to make Him 
better known and loved by others ! 

The cultivation of the mind and soul, says Pere Lacor- 
daire, was ever regarded as the most important business, 
the chosen work of the ancient sages, but since God 
Himself has deigned to become incarnate and dwell in our 
midst to cultivate them Himself, that office, so grand and 
glorious, has become a love surpassing all other loves, a 
paternity, a maternity which can find no rival. 

And never has there been an age or an epoch that called 
more imperatively for the thoroughly Christian education 
of woman ; in this lies our only hope for social regenera- 
tion and salvation. 




CHAPTER III. 

Establishment of a Mother House at Lyons. — Mother St. John ap- 
pointed Superior-General. — Her trials and difficulties. 

EANWHILE, in proportion as the Congregation 
became more numerous and extended, whether 
at Saint-Etienne, Lyons, or other places more or 
less distant, it encountered many difficulties, and found 
itself in varied and untried circumstances. In 1812, the 
disturbances and exigencies of the times and the multi- 
plication of Houses — some of which contained religious 
a41 too few for the requirements of community-life — made 
the Sisters feel the necessity of a new mode of government, 
and of a general novitiate which would assure a thorough 
and uniform training of their religious aspirants. In the 
absence of this uniformity, there were, necessarily, vari- 
eties of discipline, different lines of action, incomplete 
measures, and, at times, a kind of rivalry. 

It has been by withdrawing from such isolation and 
erecting themselves into a Congregation under a Superior- 
General that many monasteries have taken, as it w jre, a 
new lease of life and gained an increase of holiness. In 
isolation we may find the monastery, but not the monastic 
Order. Such monasteries are like scattered members : they 
are not a grand and beautiful body animated by one spirit, 
and strong by unity against the inevitable relaxations of 
human frailty. The necessity, then, of forming these 
scattered convents into a strongly constituted body, 
through which authority might flow as the sap through 
the branches of a tree, or the blood through the arteries of 



The Mother House at Lyons, 127 

the human frame — a body whose divers parts, without 
being changed, would become better fitted to attain their 
end — was speedily felt. There was but one way to effect 
this : to found a Mother House which should be at once 
the head, the centre, the bond of union, the source of 
discipline ; and for the same reason, it became necessary 
to choose a Mother or Superior-General. * 

The choice of the latter was not difficult. She who had 
preserved in her heart the beautiful traditions of St. 
Joseph's Institute in the past, who had been the instru- 
ment of its happy restoration in later times, who had 
zealously watched over its early progress, and had, under 
God, given it new life and fecundity, was, assuredly, the 
most suitable person to direct its further development. 

Lyons, too, seemed a most natural and fitting centre 
whence should radiate the various establishments of a great 
religious organization, such as the Congregation was to be- 
come. The Institute of St. Joseph, which had first sprung 
into existence in one of the most renowned strongholds of 
devotion to Mary, 2 — a city upon which, in our day, rests 



1 Up to their dispersion in 1793, the different houses of our Congregation had 
beeu, like those of the Visitandines, independent of one another. But when, after 
the restoration of peace, Napoleon permitted the Sisters to resume community-life, 
it was, as we learn from the letter of Mgr. Dampierre to the Superior of our Sisters 
of Clermont, dated Sept. 11th, 1811, with the proviso that there should be a central 
or Mother House, responsible for those affiliated to it. This mandate, coupled with 
the cogent reasons above given, led our communities, scattered throughout France, 
to form themselves into various diocesan Congregations, of which Lyons, Bourg, 
ChambSry, Le Puy, Clermont, Aux Vans, St. Gervaise-sur-Marc, and Annecy have 
become the most numerous and important. (Tr.) 

2 Rocher Corneille, which overlooks the city of Le Puy, is the spot concerning 
which we have the earliest record of an apparition of the Blessed Virgin : it occurred 
A. D. 46 or 47. Wonderful are the legends, traditions, and miracles related of the 
favored sanctuary of Mary built thereon. Puy Notre Dame, as it was called, has 
a special association with the history of the Crusades. There Urban II. spent the 
night of Aug. 15th, 1095, praying for the success of the expedition. There, too, 
Adhemar de Montheil, its glorious Bishop, before leaving his beloved city, prostrated 
himself before the blessed shrine ; and then, suddenly, as if inspired, rose and in- 
toned that anthem, since so dear to every Catholic heart, the Salve Begina, which 
thence became known as the Anthem of Puy. 



128 Life of Rev. Mot/ie?" St. John Fontbonne. 

the protecting shadow of " Our Lady of France" ! — had 
taken new. birth in the Diocese of Lyons, and it was felt 
that the most proper place for its first Mother House was 
that " City of Mary/' consecrated from time immemorial 
to Notre Dame de Fourviere. Thus it would seem that 
our Blessed Lady is desirous of keeping near her and 
guarding ever, under her own eyes, the chosen family of 
her holy Spouse ; it is a touching proof of her love, an 
assured pledge of her maternal affection. 

Mother St. John was, accordingly, summoned by the 
Diocesan authority to Lyons, after nine years of labor and 
trials at Saint-Etienne. She arrived there on July 13th, 
1816, with a party of fervent religions from the Rue de la 
Bourse, with whom were afterwards joined several Sisters 
from the House of Monistrol. 

Sister Theresa remained at Bas, that, being near her 
aged parents, she might care for them in their feebleness 
and infirmities. Both had the consolation of dying in the 
arms of their religious daughters, for as soon as Mother 
St. John heard of their impending death, she hastened 
to assist them in their last moments. Before their depar- 
ture they, like the ancient patriarchs, blessed their chil- 
dren : then, full of years and merits, they slept the sleep of 
the just, and went to receive the recompense of their 
faith and merits, leaving behind them a generation of 
Saints. 

Mother St. John and her sister returned to Lyons, where, 
by the advice of Father Bochard, who had succeeded 
Father Cholleton after his death, in 1807, not only as Vicar- 
General but as Father-Superior of the Congregation, she 
took up her abode on the hill formerly sanctified by the Sons 



1 On the 12th of Dec 18G0, after the Crimean War, a colossal statue, represent- 
ing Our Lady of France, was placed on the summit of Mont Corneille. This 
statue, which, with its pedestal, is 76 ft. in height, was cast from cannon captured 
during the War. 



The Mother House at Lyons. 129 

of St. Bruno, and in the very cloisters redolent of the vir- 
tues of departed generations of Saints. 1 

There the Sisters lived at first in extreme poverty. In 
addition to their school duties and the other employments 
of their vocation, they had to engage in the weaving of 
silk, the general industry at Lyons. A little milk, which 
took the place of wine, served also as the sole, the universal 
remedy in illness. The Sisters vied with one another in ab- 
negation, mortification and Divine love, so that the little 
Thebaid of Saint-Etienne flourished again on the hill of 
St. Bruno, who delighted to behold in his holy cloisters 
such imitators of his departed religious. " I know how 
to be hungry and to suffer need : I can do all things in 
Him who strengtheneth me," were the words of St. Paul, re- 
echoed by this holy Superior and her worthy daughters. 

"The higher a building is to be raised, " says St. Augus- 
tin, "the deeper must its foundation be laid." "The 
highest rests upon the lowest/' adds the author of the 
Imitation. Behold why humility, abnegation, and aus- 
terity were the foundation-stones of that edifice, des- 
tined, as it were, to be the dome of the Congregation, to 
serve as a Pharos to show to it the path of life. For a 
building of such an elevation, one destined to support 
such weighty burdens, extraordinary depth of foundation 
was a necessity. It is, then, the glory and solidity of the 
Mother House to rest on such basis ; and the respect of 
the Congregation was won by its being a model of regular- 
ity and true religious spirit, from the hour of its commence- 
ment. Seven years later, in 1823, Mother St. John pur- 
chased the neighboring Chateau of Yon, rich in traditions 
but greatly fallen into ruin. By dint of prudence and 
economy, she was enabled to make extensive repairs, and 



1 This hill, on the left hank of the Saone, opposite the Holy Mountain or Hill of 
Fourviere, is called the Hill of the Chartreux, hecause, formerly, on its summit, 
stood the Chartreux, the magnificent ruins of which are still to he seen. 



130 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

even to construct additional buildings ; she,, herself, with a 
wisdom and skill which won the admiration of the archi- 
tect and workmen, overlooked all the details of the work, 
which, when completed, was blessed by the Father-Su- 
perior. 

The Chateau of Yon is at present the Pensionnat of the 
Mother House ; the other building serves as the Normal 
School, the charge of which Lyons has, for many years, 
confided to the Sisters of St. Joseph. 

But when God accepts a work, He impresses on it the 
sign of the Holy Cross ; and He permitted that after so 
many trials and difficulties, Mother St. John should meet 
her reward in this Divine acceptance. When Father Bo- 
chard had examined all the arrangements, he found the 
windows too large, in his opinion, for a religious house, and 
he blamed the Superior very severely. " You," said he to 
Mother St. John, "will, with the older religious, take up 
your abode in the new buildings. The novices and young 
Sisters shall remain' in the cloisters, separated from you and 
under another Superior, exclusively charged with their di- 
rection." 

Humbly, silently, and on her knees, Mother St. John re- 
ceived this harsh decision, which seemed to rend her heart 
by dividing her community ; which separated her young 
professed from their older Sisters, who were to be their 
models, and which tore her from that beloved novitiate to 
which she clung as the nursery, the hope, the life, the 
future, of her whole religious family. 

Bitter, indeed, was the trial; and despite the sorrow, 
tears, and incessant prayers of the whole community, it 
lasted for more than a year, until Mgr. de Pins arrived at 
Lyons. During all that time of trial. Mother St. John's 
humility and obedience were heroic. A true Christian, 
she knew that a bruising of the heart is good : it is a cross, 
— the cross is ever fruitful ! 



The Mother House at Lyons. 1 3 1 

Resting on the Hill of the Chartreux, fronting on Four- 
viere, incessantly exposed to the vivifying looks of her who 
is called "Mother of Divine Grace," the Mother House of 
the Sisters of St. Joseph could not fail to become a home 
of benediction, a centre of life and spiritual fecundity. 
Hence it was soon decreed, by superior authority, that the 
local communities of St. Joseph should depend on and 
obey the House at the Chartreux as daughters of the same 
Mother. This important decision, given in 1828, made 
the Mother House a grand religious metropolis, on which 
depended a host of other houses, through which the rays of 
its sanctity and charity were to be diffused through the 
provinces of France. Thus, in former times, had shone 
Cluny, at the head of two thousand abbeys, the glory of 
their country, the ornaments of the Church. Advancing 
daily, by rapid strides, in the way of sanctity, and upheld 
by God, with whom her soul was constantly united by 
prayer, the venerable Superior kept pace with the require- 
ments of her position. Potent in good herself, she had the 
rarer talent of winning others to its accomplishment. That 
God might be better known and loved was to her, as to the 
great Apostle, a consuming desire. How rejoiced, then, 
she was to find herself surrounded by fervent and zealous 
co-workers ! Among them, there was none more earnest, 
none who better seconded her designs than her worthy as- 
sistant, Mother St. Francis. She was an ardent, generous 
soul, whose zeal and self-devotion were unbounded. 
Strictly united with her Superior in views and intentions, 
she rivalled her in her efforts to maintain peace, humility, 
union with God", fidelity to prayer and labor, in a word, 
that union of the contemplative with the active life which 
is laid down in the Rule of the Sisters of St. Joseph. 
While thus sharing the burden and trials of her Mother, it 
was her endeavor to lighten them as far as possible, and 
often, under difficult and painful circumstances, to take 



17,2 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne, 

upon herself the pain and embarrassment attendant thereon. 
When, for instance, alterations were being made in the 
Chateau Yon to render it fit for the Sisters' purposes, it 
was found necessary to open windows on the court -yard of 
the Missionaries of the Chartreux. The right, the neces- 
sity of doing so, were incontestable, no one denied it, yet 
it was a difficult matter to adjust, and one which called for 
great delicacy and address. Foreseeing this, the good As- 
sistant took advantage of the fatigue from which her ven- 
erable Superior was then suffering to beg her to retire for 
a time to some convent, where she would be free from the 
incessant business of the Mother House, saying that she 
would have the repairs effected during her absence. 
Mother St. John yielded to her entreaties, and Mother St. 
Francis urged on the workmen and bore, herself, the an- 
noyances and vexation inevitable under such circumstances. 
On her return, finding the work completed, Mother St. 
John understood and appreciated the ruse of filial love, 
and tenderly embracing her daughter, blessed God for the 
spirit she had shown. Ah, it is only those who love our 
good God above all things who know truly how to love 
and serve one another ! 

But God, whose designs, ever wise and adorable, are, at 
the same time, impenetrable, willed to deprive the Mother 
Superior of this beloved daughter, and at a time when her 
aid and counsel, amid the greatest difficulties, seemed more 
necessary than before. So sensibly did Mother St. John 
feel this loss, that, for a time, she thought it would be im- 
possible to continue her work. But God, who wished, 
doubtless, to wean her heart more and more from every 
earthly affection, aided her by His grace: her faith tri- 
umphed, and with many tears, she made her sacrifice to God. 
"0 my Lord," said she, i( Thou didst give her to me to aid 
my insufficiency ; Thou hast taken her from me ; blessed 
be Thy Holy Name ! But deign, also, Lord, to give us 



Virtues of Mother St. JohtJs Co- laborers. 133 

one whose virtues, mind, and qualities may replace her for 
whom we mourn." And He who strikes but to heal, heard 
the prayer of the sorrowing Mother, by giving her as assist- 
ant Sister St. Claire, a most fervent religious, who, imitat- 
ing the devotedness of her predecessor, applied herself 
to perform all the duties of her position in the presence 
of God, with God, and for God. 

Prayer was Mother St. Claire's attraction ; it was her 
delight, her solace, her stay. Every moment that could 
be snatched from her duties found her prostrate before 
the Blessed Sacrament, whence she drew from the Heart 
of Jesus the spirit which characterized her. Mother St. 
John was, under God, the soul of that fervor, the source 
of that Divine heat, for she applied herself zealously to 
cultivate, enlighten, console, sustain, and guide her Sis- 
ters to that perfection to which God called them. Hence 
it was that souls, enamored of the Divine love grouped 
themselves around her as satellites, receiving through her 
their light, and rinding happiness in moving and acting 
with her and beside her in the exalted sphere of perfec- 
tion and good works. 

The first Mistress of the novitiate at Lyons was Mother 
Scholastica, a chosen soul, acting in all things under 
the inspiration of grace, and possessing, in an extraordi- 
nary degree, the gift of discerning vocations and spirits, 
and of leading hearts with most perfect tact. In the 
Christian life, over and above the precepts, there are 
counsels ; beyond mere duties lies perfection, a realm vast 
and undefined, wherein the religious may, wherein she 
must, advance daily until death. The power of leading- 
souls step by step to the very heights of the perfect Chris- 
tian life was a grace conferred by God on Mother Scho- 
lastica. Her gentle sweetness and amenity of disposition 
won for her the hearts of all her novices ; to lead them to 
God by the charms of holy love was the end and aim of 



134 Life of Rev. Mother St John Fontbonne. 

her direction and instruction. " Let us do everything for 
the pure love of God," she used frequently to say. " Oh, 
let us, with all our heart, love the Spouse of our souls; 
then, indeed, every sacrifice will become easy to us." In 
truth, "love lighteneth all that is burdensome," says the 
Imitation. "It carrieth a burden without being bur- 
dened ; it flieth, runneth, rejoiceth ; it is free and cannot 
be restrained. Love lighteneth all that is burdensome, 
and maketh all that is bitter sweet and savory. ... It 
performs and effects many things, where he that loveth 
not, fainteth and falleth prostrate." Led by this spirit 
so strong and yet so sweet, the novices learned to seek 
their happiness in self-immolation, while, with holy eager- 
ness, they responded to their Mistress* efforts to form them 
to the solid virtues and true religious life of the early 
daughters of St. Joseph. The strength, light, love, and 
respect for souls necessary to the accomplishment of a 
ministry so sublime and difficult, the fervent Mistress 
found in continual union with. God. To visit this dear 
novitiate, in which souls were learning to consecrate to the 
God of love all that love had given them, was Mother St. 
John's rest in fatigue and joy in trial, for she found it 
a nursery of true religious, souls worthy of love, souls 
necessary to the rising Congregation of St. Joseph. To 
the novices themselves the visits of their venerable Supe- 
rior were occasions of rejoicing, and with avidity they 
drank in her instructions, so full of the spirit of God, so 
eloquent of His love. " Never," says a Sister trained in 
that novitiate, " never have I heard the vocation of a Sis- 
ter of St. Joseph spoken of as by our Rev. Mother St. 
John. We novices hung on her lips, and treasured in our 
souls the words she uttered." Trained in the old-time 
school of religious perfection, the Rev. Mother not only 
had an experimental knowledge of all that the words sup- 
pose, but she had the power, God -given, to make others 



Virtues of Mother St. Joints Co-laborers. 135 

view it in the same true light. Our Blessed Lord Himself 
tells us that the path to Heaven is narrow, straight, and 
thorny ; that the Christian life is a life of labor, a work- 
shop wherein are wrought out what shall give us a right 
to Heaven. That celestial kingdom is not to be a dona- 
tion ; it is to be a reward : one cannot enter therein as to 
a public garden or promenade. 

It is a fortress gloriously grand, magnificently, divinely 
beautiful, that must be fought for, that must be taken by 
assault. " Only the violent bear it away," says the Holy 
Scriptures. Virtue and perfection, then, must bear the 
sweat of toil upon their brow. To win the souls under their 
guidance to a love for such holy labor, such blessed fatigue, 
was the aim of both Superior and Mistress, an end which 
they attained rather by example than precept, for, as the 
Spouse of the Canticles says: " Draw me: we will run after 
thee to the odor of thy ointments.'' When there was ques- 
tion of her dear novitiate, Mother Scholastica counted dif- 
ficulties, pain, and trouble as naught. Her zeal rose above 
fatigue, and to give holy religious to the Institute she 
would have cheerfully laid down her life. And such a sac- 
rifice God deigned to accept. Immolated by labor on the 
altar of Divine love, she, day by day, wore herself away ; 
day by day her strength failed, her voice grew fainter, and 
at times inaudible; yet the flame of love increased its inten- 
sity in that holy soul, until, at last, consumed in its blessed 
fire, she died with her arms in her hand, laboring, until 
her last sigh, for the honor and service of the Divine 
Spouse, the Beloved of her soul. The extent, the bitter- 
ness of such a loss none knew so well as Mother St. John, 
yet she was obliged to crush and conceal her own feelings, 
in order to console, encourage, and support the commu- 
nity and especially the novitiate, inconsolable at such a de- 
privation. Happily, holy souls flourished and abounded in 
that Mother House under the impulse and influence of the 



136 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne. 

Superior-General. Mother St. Ignatius, who was called to 
continue Mother Scholastica's work, was a religious whose 
austerity towards herself was equalled only by her meek- 
ness and consideration for others. By her humility and 
love for the hidden life she was, as it were, a violet whose 
odor was diffused over the whole garden of St. Joseph. But 
this spirit of retirement concealed a virile soul, a character 
true and generous, capable of the most heroic sacrifices. 
Worthy of that Mother in whose soul the strength of mar- 
tyrs was to be found wonderfully combined with the lovely 
simplicity of childhood, she suffered not the work of the 
novitiate to languish, and the nursery of the Congregation 
of St. Joseph continued to send forth numbers of souls 
trained to religious perfection, souls tried and true, who 
were destined to carry the Institute far and wide, and ren- 
der it one of the greatest and most beautiful parterres of 
God's holy Church. Under Mother St. John's govern- 
ment, Mother Ignatius was succeeded by Mother Stephanie 
and Mother St. Xavier; the former died Superior of Givor; 
the latter, of Saint-Veran; both have left to the commu- 
nity a heritage of saintly memories. The good work was car- 
ried on by Mother Mary Dorothea, who, with angelic purity 
and virtue combined "the wisdom of the serpent and 
the gentleness of the dove," according to the admonition of 
the Lord. Appointed afterwards Visitor-general, she, like 
the dove of the ancient ark, bore from house to house the 
olive branch of peace. Communities vied with each other 
for her possession, but Heaven itself was desirous of her, 
and by an early death she entered into her eternal reward. 
Nor were the class -mistresses less imbued with the spirit 
of their Mother, less one with her in heart and soul. Sis- 
ter Delphine, the first, bent all her energy to the accom- 
plishment of her Superior's lightest wish, regarding her 
will as the will of God. Her confidence in Mother St. 
John's judgment was absolute, and her filial affection so 



Virtues of Mother St. Johrfs Co-laborers. 137 

great, that what the Apostle had said of the Galatians l 
might well be applied to her, since she counted no thing a 
sacrifice that could aid her Superior. Sister Mary Antoin- 
ette, the Mother- General's faithful secretary, whose duties 
brought her into the closest and most intimate relations w T ith 
her Superior, conceived the highest veneration for her vir- 
tues ; and, beholding in her the worthy representative of 
our Lord, esteemed it her glory and honor to render those 
services for which her excellent disposition, cultivated mind, 
and rare talents so Avell fitted her. Of fatigue and priva- 
tion she made no account, and when the clay sufficed not 
for the accomplishment of her duties, she cheerfully sacri- 
ficed her rest. When unable longer to serve in the active 
life, she consummated, in the repose of the cloister, a life 
of devotion, disinterestedness, filial and Divine love. 

We have not touched upon the labors and sacrifices of 
Sister Febronia, who aided her sister in the direction of the 
novices' classes ; -nor on those of Sister Teresa, who, al- 
though older than the Superior-General, her sister, was 
ever her most humble, obedient, arjd devoted child. All 
looked to their Mother with the confidence of veneration. 
United in her, united with one another, they drew from 
her direction the same impulse, the same religious spirit, 
the same love for our Lord, devotion to the Blessed Mother 
and St. Joseph, with which she herself was replenished. 
" It is only Saints who can lead others to be Saints." Near 
her, the weak became strong ; the timid, courageous ; the 
faint-hearted, bold and energetic ; for under her engag- 
ing simplicity and good-nature, they recognized a heart 
that loved, a knowledge most enlightened, a wisdom in- 
spired from above, a prudence that foresaw and prevented, 
a sanctity that communicated itself. " To speak worthily 
of our Mother," exclaims one of her venerable daughters, 
" one should hold the pen of genius." 

1 Gal. iv. 15. 



138 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

One can well understand that so much good was not 
operated by Mother St. John without her having to en- 
counter trials, contradiction, and the cross. We have 
already seen her severely reprimanded, humbled, nay, even 
put in penance, like a young novice, for an act which 
even those who condemned it were obliged to acknowl- 
edge later as praiseworthy, for the windows whose size had 
drawn upon her the censure of Father Bochard had to be 
still farther enlarged, to meet the requirements not only of 
modern taste, but even of the laws of health. 

Eev. Father Charles Cholleton, nephew of the priest of 
that name before referred to, succeeded Father Bochard as 
Grand Vicar of Lyons and Superior of the Sisters of St. 
Joseph. He procured the admission to the Lyons novi- 
tiate of a young lady of exceptional talent and rare acquire- 
ments. Anxious to speedily utilize her varied attainments, 
he insisted that, whilst still a postulant, she should be 
employed as one of the teachers in the novitiate. Such 
an extraordinary mark of confidence did not fail to greatly 
increase the young lady's natural pride and self-sufficienc} r . 
Her actions, her conversation, her claims to preference, of 
which she spoke even to seculars in the parlor, her whole con- 
duct, in a word, was so eccentric, so utterly at variance with 
the spirit of a religious, that Sister Delphine and Sister 
Febronia, the class-mistresses, could not, in conscience, 
despite their deference to Father Cholleton, vote in favor of 
his unworthy protege, and she was rejected at the Chapter. 

The Grand Vicar, being persuaded that their objections 
arose from mere prejudice, if not even from jealousy, 
insisted that the two religious should be sent away from 
the Mother House. This command fell like a thunderbolt 
on Mother St. John, for she foresaw that it could not but 
prove detrimental, nay, injurious, to the course of instruc- 
tion organized in that dear novitiate, on which depended 
the future of the Congregation. 



Mother St. Johrfs Conduct tender Trial. 139 

Thus banished from the Mother House, the two Sisters 
were, moreover, assigned to very difficult and painful 
positions, Sister Delphine to one that would inevitably have 
ruined her health. Mother St. John, who had promised 
the father that she would act as a mother towards his 
daughters, felt obliged to procure her removal to a 
place more favorable to one of her feeble and delicate con- 
stitution. But as to Sister Febronia, she, by wise and 
prudent advice, simply encouraged her to obey blindly and 
simply, without remark, observation, or delay. 

As the local Superior to whom the latter was sent was un- 
favorably disposed towards Mother St. John, her position 
was one of great delicacy ; but so prudently and holily did 
this worthy niece act, that not only were the prejudices of 
the Superior dispelled, but they gave place to sentiments 
the most religious and most elevated. For, going to Mother 
St. John, she cast herself on her knees, and humbly beg- 
ging her pardon, conjured her to forget the past, and not 
to withdraw her niece, whose conduct and virtues had so 
greatly edified all the Sisters, and so happily enlightened 
and undeceived herself. 

Thus did God, who draws good out of evil, bless and 
recompense the sacrifice of the good Superior, whose pro- 
found humility, perfect obedience, and prudence, as well 
as those of her persecuted nieces, were soon clearly re- 
vealed. For, after their departure, that same postulant 
who had given rise to the suspicions regarding them had 
to be dismissed from the Congregation, all means tried for 
her improvement and perfection having failed. 

Undeceived at last, Father Cholleton recognized his er- 
ror, and failed not to render due tribute to the prudence 
and virtue displayed by the Superior and Sisters concerned 
in the matter; and, to the end of his life, he preserved the 
utmost esteem for Mother St. John, and the greatest con- 
fidence in her judgment. 




CHAPTER IV. 

Mother St. John's love and consideration for her daughters. — Her 
amiability with externs. — Arrangements in favor of the sick and 
poor. — The Sisters take charge of the Lyceum. — Epidemic at the 
Mother House. — House of Retreat for the sick aud superannuated 
religious opened at Vernaison. — Her love follows her children 
beyond the tomb. 

HERE is no more saddening, nay, more terrifying, 
characteristic of modern society than the want of 
love that is revealed everywhere around us. The 
world, in this respect, has become almost a barren waste, 
a frozen desert. Consequently, it is with a sense of relief, 
a feeling of happiness, that one meets with souls elevated, 
generous, unselfish, devoted, as was that of Mother St. 
John. 

" There is nothing truly great save goodness," says Bos- 
suet. The heart rules the faculties; and, according to a 
great master of the spiritual life, " all beauty, whether 
physical or moral, is imperfect, unless it is good." Such 
was the character of Mother St. John's charity and tender- 
ness to her daughters, that each believed herself the recipi- 
ent of special marks of affection. In her heart there was 
no forgetfulness : no matter how far business carried her 
from home, no matter how anxious, occupied, or embar- 
rassed by multiplicity of affairs, if she heard of or saw any- 
thing likely to be useful or pleasing to her children, she 
tried to procure it, and would carry it to them with all a 
mother's unselfish delight. When she went abroad on or- 
dinary occasions, she would herself purchase little delica- 



Love and Consideration for her Daughters. 141 

cies for those who needed them, for the teachers, especial- 
ly, whose wearisome and often painful duties are so trying 
to the health, courage, and patience. 

An aged Superior, still living, is accustomed to tell that 
during her novitiate she was allowed to have for her lunch 
only a piece of dry bread; but that often on going 
for it to the refectory, she would find some fruit or other 
tasty morsel put with it in her drawer. For a long 
time she was at a loss how to account for the indulgence, 
but finally perceived that Mother St. John, to whom, at 
meals, a little extra was sometimes given on account of her 
great age, used to deprive herself of it in favor of her 
delicate little novice. The Mother-General's charity and 
goodness were not restricted to those whom she might, in 
some sense, claim her own ; but their beneficent influence 
was exerted on all with whom she came in contact ; and, 
by the charm of her intercourse, many souls were drawn 
to her family of St. Joseph. 

Two young girls of the same family were anxious to 
enter the religious life, for which they felt great attraction, 
but the age and circumstances of their father presented a 
seemingly insuperable obstacle to their wishes. Convinced 
of the solidity of their vocation, and also of their posses- 
sion of qualities likely to promote the glory of God, the 
Mother came to their aid. On receiving the daughters in- 
to the novitiate she installed the father as gardener to the 
convent. By her kind consideration, her careful provision 
for all his wants, she filled, until his death, the place of 
the children whom he had given to God, and thus assured 
both his and their happiness for time and eternity. 

Another young girl, whose mother was dependent on her 
for support, felt an ardent longing to enter the Congrega- 
tion. Having obtained the consent of her ecclesiastical 
Superiors, Mother St. John gave the mother a room in the 
convent, and charitably provided for all her necessities, to 



142 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

the astonishment and gratitude of mother and child, who 
could not sufficiently bless and thank our Lord for having 
raised up for them such a benefactress. To be able to do 
good to others was Mother St. John's delight ; and God, 
who knew that the dearest wish of her heart was the in- 
crease of that novitiate on which the future of the Con- 
gregation depended, was preparing, as the reward of her 
charity, a great and holy consolation. 

Near the Mother House there lived a family esteemed 
and revered by all who had the honor of its acquaintance. 
It bore a name honored and blessed throughout the Church, 
— that of St. Bernard, the glorious Abbot of Clairvaux ; 
but, better still, it reproduced his virtues and renewed the 
memory of his and his brothers' extraordinary vocations. 

The parents were fervent and devout Christians, whose 
faith and courage had been put to the proof; their whole 
ambition was to make their children Saints, and God 
crowned their desires. Mother St. John fully appreciated 
the worth of the Bernards, who, on their part, loved and 
reverenced her as a Saint, as the following anecdote will 
prove. When, on one occasion, M. Bernard was giving 
instruction on the Christian Doctrine to his children, he 
told them that our Lord Jesus Christ had died to save 
man, and that through His precious death alone man had 
acquired a right to Heaven. On hearing this, the youngest 
child, who, in her simple veneration for Mother St. John, 
could not believe that she could have been included in the 
general reprobation, expressed herself to that effect. On 
being undeceived, she burst into tears at the very thought 
that she, whose rare virtue had made so deep an impression 
on her childish heart, could, under any circumstances, 
have been damned. Such veneration could not remain 
barren : the result was that not only this child, but ail her 
sisters, felt irresistibly drawn to the Congregation of St. 
Joseph. As the eldest daughter had been educated by 



Her Charity to the Suffering. 143 

nuns of another Order, the father objected that, perhaps, 
gratitude would require a preference for her former relig- 
ious home. "No, father," she replied; "my desire is 
to be the child of Mother St. John. Her virtues have won 
my heart. Give but your consent, and my happiness will be 
completeln having her for my mother. " Her six sisters fol- 
lowed the like attraction, so that M. and Mme. Bernard gave 
seven daughters to God in the Congregation of St. Joseph. 
One son remained to them, but, he, like Samuel, conse- 
crated himself to God, and entered the ecclesiastical state. 
Blessed and happy the family which produces such chil- 
dren ! As St. Bernard's arrival at Citeaux with his numer- 
ous band of holy companions diffused joy thoughout that 
ancient abbey, so the entrance of these seven sisters into 
St. Joseph's Novitiate filled the heart of the Eev. Mother 
with supernatural joy, while, at the same time, it delighted, 
encouraged, and stimulated the fervor of her novices. 
All those young ladies were models of Christian virtue and 
the religious life ; one still survives and is Superior of an 
important mission of the Congregation. Is it not grand 
and inspiring to see, in modern times as in those of St. 
Bernard, families of such generosity, such Christian en- 
lightenment and wonderful sanctity ? 

" Charity seeketh not her own ; charity never faileth," 
and in Mother St. John's heart there was pity, compas- 
sion, and generous help for every suffering or sorrowing 
member of Jesus Christ. The better to discover and assist 
those unfortunates, she organized a band of Sisters adapted 
to such work by nature, character, and grace. Well in- 
deed and wisely had St. Francis de Sales and St. Vincent 
de Paul foreseen the wants and circumstances of our times, 
in which, to use the expression of St. Bernard, faith be- 
comes acceptable only by her works of charity. Man, in 
proportion as he loses faith, becomes like the animal, sen- 
sible only of what flatters his body. 



144 -Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonnc. 

On this account, charity is become an apostolate, and 
virginity, through which it is exercised, a veritable priest- 
hood, which cares for the body in order to reach the soul. 

Prayer, mortification, and penance are no longer un- 
derstood : men enamored of sensual pleasures esteem a 
thousand times more highly what is clone for the body 
than any service that can be rendered the soul. The 
heart which fails to understand the cloistered and contem- 
plative Orders understands, nevertheless, — when not whol- 
ly spoiled or influenced by sectarian hate, — the religious 
who dresses the sores of the poor, soothes their sorrows, 
dries their tears, and, becoming a mother without ceasing 
to be a virgin, harbors and nourishes their children. And 
this all the more, because epochs the most eager for ma- 
terial pleasure are, also, the most fruitful in catastrophes 
and misfortunes that call for bitter tears. 

In thus, then, organizing her Sisters for works of charity, 
the Superior-General was but carrying out the inspiration of 
God. Under her wise regulations, the religious were to 
be found at the bedside of the dying, in the loneliest and 
most infected attics, carrying help to the unfortunate, 
giving medicine to the sick, food to the hungry, garments 
to the naked: mingling, with corporal alms and attentions, 
that spiritual assistance all the more necessary because un- 
sought for. 

The religious in such a ministry, says a philosopher, re- 
minds one of a swan walking beside a stagnant marsh, Avith 
pure and stainless plumage ; or in the more expressive 
words of Benedict XII. : " She is the morning star, shining 
in the midst of a fog." i ' She is, as it were," says another 
grave author, " the beacon of innocence and purity shed- 
ding its Divine rays over the abyss of human depravity." 
From such angelic hearts an odor of grace, sanctity, and 
edification is exhaled over the world. 
It was in view of this salutary influence that Mother 



The Sisters take Charge of the Lyceum. 145 

St. John, acting on the advice and entreaty of Eev. 
Father Cholleton, gave several of her religious to the Ly- 
ceum at Lyons, where they were to attend to household 
duties and care for the sick. But here below, in Christi- 
anity, above all, says a great Bishop, nothing can be done 
without contradiction, suffering, and the cross. Mgr. de 
Pins, who had for some time been absent, blamed, on his 
return, the concession made to the Lyceum, and severely 
reproached Mother St. John for having, in this case, 
been wanting in her usual prudence and tact. Strong in 
her humility, the Mother- General received the Bishop's 
reproaches with the most religious respect : she made no 
attempt to justify her conduct, and did not even speak of 
the wish, nay, the formal orders she had received from the 
Grand Vicar, in regard to the work. 

God, who exalts the humble, rewarded her delicate 
charity and humility. Every undertaking must be blessed 
by God, says a holy prelate, otherwise it is good for noth- 
ing : now what so powerful as humility in drawing 
down the blessing of Heaven ! This Mother St. John 
was on this, as- on many previous occasions, to experience. 
The virtue and prudence of her daughters, rendered the 
more forcible by the tender devices of their charity, oper- 
ated wonders in the Lyceum. Example is more powerful 
than precept, for, as says the proverb, " Words move, but 
example draws." As the tree is judged by its fruits, so 
the Sisters, revealing, by their blessed works, the power and 
beauty of our Divine religion, led both masters and pupils 
to recognize, respect, and love it, while they admired 
the simplicity, modesty, and indefatigable charity which it 
inspired. The sick, especially, regarded the Sisters as ten- 
der mothers, and the care they lavished on the body often 
gave them entrance to the more diseased soul. 

Among the pupils of the Lyceum at that time were two 
young Jews, one of whom was stricken with malignant 



146 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

small-pox. It is needless to say that his masters fled from 
him ; his parents and the Jewish Rabbi refused to visit 
him, and the doctor himself gave his prescriptions at a dis- 
tance. The Sisters of St. Joseph, alone, remained night 
and day by his bedside, tenderly watching over him, sooth- 
ing his pain, until they led him back to life even from the 
shadows of the valley of death. The impressions thus pro- 
duced on the mind of the patient were shared by his 
brother, one in heart and soul with him. In such heroic 
charity, practised in the name of Jesus Christ, they recog- 
nized the marks of the truth. Their conversion to Catho- 
licity thus begun was happily perfected, and to-day, the 
two Fathers Lemann are priests, missionaries, and apostles 
of Him in whose name, and for whose love, the Daughters 
of St. Joseph took the place of their natural mother. 
Nature is inferior to grace ; 3^et grace admits the concur- 
rence of nature, since the gifts of God never contradict, 
they harmonize. 

The charitable care of the sick and infirm has ever been 
a favorite work of the Catholic Church, the beloved em- 
ployment of her Saints. Mother St. John earnestly recom- 
mended it to her Sisters, and it was obedience to her 
counsels and directions which won their success in the 
Lyons Lyceum. 

But if charity diffuses its perfume abroad, it is prodigal 
of its Divine sweetness i( to those who are of the household 
of the faith," and Mother St. John was now to have an 
opportunity of putting in practice the admonition of the 
great Apostle. 1 

An epidemic broke out in the Mother House, and many 
of the Sisters succumbed to its ravages. The Mother, ever 
attentive even to the slight indispositions of her children, 
was overwhelmed with grief. Prayers, visits, vigils, reme- 

1 Gal. vi. 10. 



Epidemic at the Mother House. 147 

dies, the most celebrated doctors, — nothing was spared, 
that was likely to avert the clanger or lessen the viru- 
lence of the scourge. She caused an infirmary to be 
fitted up near her own room, so that she could watch over 
the administration of remedies, and hear the slightest moan 
of her dear invalids, to whose succor she would imme- 
diately run. The number soon became so great that, to 
relieve the infirmarians and assure continued attendance 
on the sick, she was obliged to call on the other Sisters. 
Fearless of danger, and undismayed at the prospect of 
death, so many eagerly pressed their services, that she had 
to moderate their zeal, and choose a favored few from 
among the crowd so desirous of self-immolation. But 
maternal care and tenderness proved unavailing where 
God exacted the sacrifice. Many of the Sisters died, and 
the sorrow of the afflicted Superior was so great as to draw 
tears from all who beheld her. Prayers and sacrifices were 
incessantly offered to procure the cessation of the scourge, 
and every moment left free from her ministrations to the 
sick, found the Mother prostrate at the feet of her cruci- 
fix or before the Divine Tabernacle, weeping and pleading 
with God for the pardon of her sins, which, she said, had 
drawn down the Divine vengeance on her house. 

She implored prayers for this intention at Fourviere, La 
Trappe, and. all the religious communities of Lyons, as 
well as from all holy souls whom she knew. Moved by so 
many fervent supplications, God permitted that a very dis- 
tinguished physician should discover both the cause and 
remedy of the disease. The epidemic ceased, and. sadness, 
grief, and desolation gave place to joy, gratitude, and 
thanksgiving. " To those who love God all things work 
together unto good ; " joy and sorrow are alike susceptible 
of sanctification, and the rejoicing of that spiritual family 
was as edifying as had been its grief. 

But besides maladies and accidental infirmities, people 



148 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

•have to bear with, those that are the result of years and 
labor. Life wears us out ; every hour takes from us some 
portion of our strength and existence. Life is made up of 
our vanished hours, says St. Gregory Nazianzen, whose 
own existence was but a continual death. We shall be- 
come aged ; we shall wax old as a garment, says the Holy 
Spirit. 

Labor is a law imposed alike on the good and the bad. 
Adam, even in his innocence, labored ; and he who diso- 
beys the law, descends by rapid strides from idleness to 
weariness and disgust, thence into moral disorder ; hence 
the axiom, " Idleness is the mother of vice." Labor, on the 
contrary, even while making time pass quickly, sanctifies 
and renders it fruitful ; but it also exhausts and enfeebles 
the bodily powers. 

" When, then/' says Father Lacordaire, " we have paid 
the debt of labor, and arrived at the term of old age, re- 
pose is befitting, and we can enjoy it, with the blessing of 
God. The rest of the laborer and the aged is a right, a 
dignity." Around a life of sanctified labor, above all, 
there glows an incomparable aureola. Nothing is more 
venerable, nothing more touching than the sight of an 
old and faithful worker in the school of Christ. Hence, 
the Holy Spirit, so sparing in praise, is prodigal in regard 
to the aged. 

" One great cause of regret for old age is," says Mme. 
Swetchine, " that our Lord has not sanctified this period 
of life by passing through it Himself. It is the sole age 
to which He has not bequeathed His example." The Hi- 
vine plan had other magnificent views, of which St. Paul 
gives us only a glimpse. 1 To Mary, His beautiful Mother, — 
Mary, whom, in His gentle sweetness, He has drawn 
nearer to our miseries, — to her He has left the mission of 

1 Eph. iv. 13. 



House for Sick and Aged Religious. 1 49 

being the model of Christian old age. Those who grow 
old shall meet their Mother in the retired pathways of life,, 
hidden in a little house on Mount Sion, in the company of 
St. John, who there celebrates the Sacred Mysteries, and 
gives Holy Communion to his adoptive Mother. There, in 
that retreat, she prepares herself for her departure to 
Heaven. 

To afford to her daughters, enfeebled by age and worn 
out by laborious service in the cause of God, religion, and 
mankind, such a place of retreat, such a home of precious 
and holy memories, was Mother St. John's ardent desire. 
While her eyes and heart were occupied in seeking, in 
the neighborhood of Lyons and Fourviere, a spot which, 
to her cherished invalids, should be what Mount Sion was 
to our Blessed Lady, — a place of repose, of prayer, of 
union with God and preparation for the great voyage 
from which they would never return, — her soul offered 
ardent prayers that our Lord would, in His Providence, 
provide the necessary means for its acquisition. "Not was 
He deaf to her entreaties. He enabled her to purchase at 
Vernaison, in the suburbs of Lyons, on the banks of the 
Rhone, a beautiful country-seat, endowed with every 
charm that salubrious atmosphere, delightful scenery, 
sparkling waters, and vivifying sunlight can impart. 

She would not have thought a palace too good for those 
daughters, majestic by their age, labors, self-devotion, and 
virtue. But everything must have a beginning. Hers it 
was to lay the foundation : Mother Sacred Heart was, 
later, to continue and develop her work, whose enlarge- 
ment has been necessitated by the extension of the Con- 
gregation, as well as by the greater enfeeblement of con- 
stitutions in our day. 

Death follows, nay, often anticipates old age, but it had 
not the power to remove Mother St. John's loved ones be- 
yond the sphere of her affection. Faithful to the require- 



150 Life of Rev \ Mother St. John Fontboiine. 

ments of her holy rule, she procured for the dying every 
help and consolation, spiritual or temporal, that could 
soothe their passage to eternity. Nothing could tear her 
from the bedside of the agonizing. There she persevered 
in incessant prayer, suggesting aspirations and encouraging 
the departing one to suffer holily, by holding up her cru- 
cified Jesus as her Model, and Heaven itself as her recom- 
pense. She was accustomed to assemble the Sisters around 
their dying companion, that while receiving in that solemn 
moment a lesson and a warning, they might, by their 
united suffrages, afford consoling help, and, like their 
Divine Master, "love their own even unto the end." 

To those who love in God, absence brings not f orgetf ul- 
ness ; and faith, overleaping the bounds of time, gives aid 
and comfort even in eternity. Not content with the suf- 
frages obligatory in the Congregation itself, Mother St. 
John would implore prayers and sacrifices in other religious 
communities. We have read hundreds of letters written 
by her under such circumstances, wherein she weeps and 
loves as did our Lord at the tomb of Lazarus. Under 
beautiful and varied forms she reminds her children of 
those great truths which the Holy Spirit recommends to 
the reflection of faithful souls : It is a holy and wholesome 
thought to pray for the dead. Think of your last end and 
you will ever be ready, for death comes like a thief in the 
night. Nothing defiled shall enter Heaven ; in Heaven 
alone can the soul love perfectly : — hence the necessity of 
procuring release to those souls, so that they may enter 
Heaven, and become our intercessors with God. 

For, as Mgr. Plantier beautifully says, " the Saints' con- 
currence to the works of God ceases not when they depart 
this earth ; it is transformed ; it is elevated : servants of 
God as they were upon earth, they become protectors in 
Heaven." In view of this double end, — to give help and 
consolation to her beloved dead, as well as to increase the 



Her Love follows her Departed Children. 151 

number of protectors before G-od, Mother St. John pro- 
cured many Masses in sanctuaries the most highly vener- 
ated and most richly privileged. The soul of that daughter 
latest called from life seemed to be her cliosen one, because 
she looked on it as the most necessitous, i e One hour in 
purgatory," says the Imitation, " shall be more terrible 
than a hundred years of most rigid penance upon earth." 

What a contrast between religion and the world ! "In 
the world," says the Imitation, li when one passes out of 
sight, quickly also is he out of mind ;" which has made a 
wise man say: "Distrust the world; the absent stay not 
long in the heart." 

Ah, the Church, oar Mother, forgets not the absent, the 
dead! Her teaching in regard to the departed is not a 
dogma alone; it is the charm of life, the consolation of the 
bereaved heart. Nothing is so sweet, so beautiful, so 
thoroughly human as the Communion of Saints, which 
unites us, even after death, to those whom we have loved 
in life. 




CHAPTER V. 

Construction of a chapel at the Mother House. — Blessing of God in 
temporal matters. — Mother St. John's reliance on Providence. — 
She visits Le Puy. — Constitution and general government of 
the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph. 

N the meantime, in the midst of all her holy un- 
dertakings, Mother St. John suffered a privation 
which nothing could lighten, a sense of loneli- 
ness ever on the increase. In the depth of her heart re- 
sounded ever these words which the author of the Imitation 
puts in the mouth of our Lord : " If thou wishest to be 
with Me, I wish to be with thee ; M to which she responded: 
" Deign to dwell with me, Lord; I ardently desire to be 
with Thee. All my desire is that my heart may be united 
with Thee." 

This insatiable longing was to have our Lord under her 
roof, in the house, as a father in the midst of his children, 
for hitherto the Mother House had possessed no chapel, not 
even the Divine Tabernacle. For the Church offices and 
other devotions the Sisters were obliged to go to the parish- 
church, where, indeed, they continued their blessed apos- 
tolate, preaching by their faith and profound recollection 
to the edification of their fellow-worshippers. But their 
heart suffered from the absence of their Beloved ; and, like 
the Spouse of the Canticle, they cried to Him with all their 
strength. Their loving invocation: "Come, Lord Jesus, 
come quickly," rose incessantly before the throne of grace. 

To procure the necessary means for the realization of 
their hope, neither Mother nor daughters thought any econ- 
omy or privation too great : love never counts the cost. 



A Chapel at the Mother House. 153 

The veneration won for Mother St. John and her commu- 
nity by the odor of sanctity which pervaded it, led many 
charitable persons to contribute to the work ; and the bless- 
ing of Divine Providence multiplied the means in her 
hands, so that, as one of her Sisters expresses it, she could 
do very much with very little. 

Soon that chapel, the object of so many earnest prayers 
and sighs, was erected. It consisted of a nave sufficiently 
spacious for the wants of the community, a graceful and 
beautiful sanctuary, two chapels dedicated to the Blessed 
Virgin and St. Joseph, and a place whence the sick could 
assist at the Church offices. 

What the ancient tabernacle was to ]\Ioses, this chapel 
was to Mother St. John, and with the Prophet she could ex- 
claim : " Lord God of my heart, I have cried before thee 
night and day." Thither she went to seek her Stay and 
her Light, her Teacher in the science of the Saints and her 
Director in doubts; there she plunged herself into the Heart 
of Jesus, the ocean of love, whence she came forth imbued 
with Its spirit of charity, zeal, and benignity. Nor were 
the daughters less eager than their Mother to pay court to 
Him who dwelt in their lowly Tabernacle; in His presence 
they inhaled, as it were, a breath, a breeze from Heaven, 
which their hearts again exhaled, laden with the odors of 
humility, sanctity, and piety which pervaded the whole 
convent. 

" Godliness is profitable to all things, having promise of 
the life that now is, and of that which is to come/' says the 
Apostle St. Paul, 2 which words were fulfilled in the Superior 
General, by her wise and prudent temporal administration. 

We acknowledge that the Chateau Yon, the House of 



1 This structure has since been replaced by a beautiful church, magnificently 
frescoed and adorned, and large enough to accommodate the numbers of religious 
u-ho flock to Lyons for their annua] retreats, 

2 I, Tim. iv. 8, 



154 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

Retreat at Vernaison, and the Chapel at the Mother House 
were not then what they are now, but human affairs are 
progressive; the beginning cannot be the end. Rome, to 
use a familiar expression, was not built in a day, and to 
realize what, under her government, was really effected, one 
must bring himself face to face with the ravages and de- 
struction wrought by the Revolution, and the extreme 
poverty of the Congregation in her day. 

Obedient to the Scriptural admonition, " Owe no 
man anything," she had an abhorrence of debt ; and her 
punctuality in paying the workmen, her care in looking 
after them and providing for their wants, made them re- 
vere her as a true mother. Providence, undoubtedly, 
generously aided her in her difficulties, for without Its aid 
what can be done ? Yet, as says the Imitation, one must first 
do his part, and God will do the rest. In this case, one 
becomes associated with Divine Providence. By wise ad- 
ministration, love of labor, and holy poverty, Mother St. 
John and her Sisters merited to be the associates of Divine 
Providence ; and this explains how their undertakings, 
accomplished in the midst of distress, were so beautiful, so 
solid, and so fruitful. 

But her Divine Associate was more clearly to reveal 
His co-operation at a time when, all her available resources 
having been exhausted in the purchase of Vernaison, she 
was called to save an important work of charity, the Prov- 
idence de la Croix-Rousse, near the Mother House. 
The benefactors and sustainers of this institution having 
died, the heirs — not indeed inheritors of their charity — 
wished to annul the will which assured definitely the pres- 
ent and future existence of the work. To preserve it 
from destruction, Mother St. John undertook to pay for 
the house the sum of forty thousand francs. Here surely 
was reliance on Divine Providence, and a just reliance, 
since the community agreed to redouble their labors, 



The Unification of the Congregation. 155 

privations, and economy ; persuaded that, their part ac- 
complished, Providence would do the rest. Who has 
hoped in God and been confounded ? Their confidence 
was not deceived ; and their obligations were fully and 
honorably discharged. 

The great and important work of the re-organization and 
unification of the Congregation of Lyons under a Superior 
General was effected, almost without contradiction, by 
Mother St. John's spirit of prudent conciliation. Many 
convents which had at first raised opposition were won 
by the sight of the general contentment : the reputation, 
above all, the visits of the good Mother, soon dispelled 
their prejudices, and calmed their fears. A particular 
community, somewhat better off in regard to temporali- 
ties, held itself aloof, from a fear of the control which 
centralization would exercise over superfluities. Mother 
St. John, who was personally unknown to the Sisters, 
claimed their hospitality as a religious travelling from 
Lyons ; at the same time she expressly forbade her com- 
panion to reveal her identity. They were received with 
most cordial and religious affection, and the Mother incog- 
nita charmed the whole community by her amiability, 
exquisite tact, and profoundly religious spirit. So far was 
she received into their esteem and confidence that they 
begged her to use her influence to obtain some concession 
in favor of their particular circumstances ; which she 
promised in all simplicity, frankly and willingly. 

All that they saw of her so increased their respect and 
veneration that, as she was about to depart, one of the 
Sisters exclaimed aloud : " I do believe she is Eeverend 
Mother St. John herself." The smile which this sudden 
exclamation won from her travelling companion, attested 
its truth, and told the community the treasure they had 
in their possession. No one would hear of her departure : 
the Superior and Sisters entreated her to remain with 



156 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

them for some time. She consented, and the result was 
that she wholly gained their hearts, dispelled every fear, 
and won their complete adherence to the government of 
such a Mother. Her visits to particular houses were pro- 
ductive of immense good, infusing sentiments of charity, 
confidence, and peace. Soon they grouped themselves 
lovingly around Le Chartreux, and that Congregation has 
ever since been distinguished for its filial love for the 
Mother House and the Superior General. 

In the meantime, the Sisters of St. Joseph at Le Puy 
could not but envy I/yons the possession of her who had 
been Superior at Monistrol, and the beloved daughter and 
friend of their Bishop. On the other hand, Mother St. 
John felt a natural attraction and legitimate affection to 
that community to which she had been bound by birth, 
education, early religious life, and later trials and suffer- 
ings. A wholly unforeseen circumstance led to mutual tes- 
timonies of affectionate regret. 

Being, on one occasion, on a journey, the Mother Gen- 
eral found that, much against her inclinations, she would 
have to stop at Le Puy. As the Constitutions oblige the 
Sisters to lodge at the houses of the Congregation, if there 
be any within reach, she sought hospitality from the Sisters, 
hoping that, as none knew her personally, she might pass 
unnoticed. Orders not to reveal her identity were given 
her companion, and they presented themselves merely as 
two religious from the House in Lyons. As might be ex- 
pected under such circumstances, the conversation turned 
on the Mother Superior of Lyons, who had so long been a 
member of the Institute at Le Puy. None of the Sisters 
had ever seen her, but they were thoroughly acquainted 
with all her past history, her life, and her virtues, and 
congratulated their guests on the happiness of having such 
a Mother. Continuing to speak of her actions and of her 
profoundly religious spirit, they put Mother St. John in a 



Mother St. Johns Visit to Le Pity. 157 

most embarrassing position, from which she vainly tried to 
extricate herself by adroitly changing the subject. 

Finding this ineffectual, she said that their praise was 
exaggerated; she herself knew Mother St. John to be a very 
ordinary person, that she had seen nothing wonderful in 
her manner of life. At this juncture, an aged Sister, 
who had been a member of the community previous to the 
Revolution, but whose infirmities had hitherto prevented 
her appearance, entered the room. On beholding her 
who had once been her Mother, she cast herself into 
her arms, shedding tears of joy, and blessing God for thus 
allowing her to see once again the object of her love and 
gratitude. This scene, so surprising to the beholders and 
withal so touching, was followed by another far more pain- 
ful to the heart of the Superior General. Overwhelmed 
with joy at the thought of possessing her whose worth they 
so well knew, the Sisters formed the project of keeping her 
with them as a pearl which belonged to their community 
rather than to that of Lyons. In the midst of the family 
rejoicing, from which the good Mother could not withdraw 
herself, the religious of Le Puy hastened to the Bishop, to 
implore his power and mediation, both with Mother St. 
John and the ecclesiastical authorities of Lyons. 

But all was unavailing. God, by the voice of His vice- 
gerents, had spoken, and revealed His will by the course of 
events at Lyons. Tearing herself from the arms that 
tried so lovingly to retain her, she returned to those be- 
loved children whom God, as in the case of Job, had given 
to console her for those lost by means of the Revolution. 

Thus we see the great work of the restoration and unifi- 
cation of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph at 
Lyons, conceived, decided, and decreed by the ecclesiasti- 
cal Superiors, carried out and happily consummated, by 
Mother St. John. As a diocesan Congregation, it claims 
as its head and first Superior and Father the Angel of the 



1 58 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne. 

Diocese, the Archbishop of Lyons, who delegates his 
authority to one of his Vicar-Generals, who bears the title 
of Superior General or Eev. Father of the whole Congre- 
gation of Lyons. 

With the concurrence of these Spiritual Fathers, and 
under absolute dependence on the Archbishop, Mother St. 
John, as Superior General, directed the spiritual and tem- 
poral matters of the Congregation, aided by an Assistant 
General, and a council of her most prudent and experi- 
enced daughters. 

Eegular classes for the instruction of postulants or as- 
pirants were opened, as also one general novitiate, wherein 
the novices were trained to the religious life. This was a 
most potent means of procuring desirable uniformity in 
discipline, and that unity of spirit which realizes, as far as 
is possible to human weakness, that wish of our Di- 
vine Master : " That they all may be one, as Thou, 
Father, in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in 
us." 1 

Admirably situated in the City of Mary, and established 
on the ancient hill of Saint Bruno, on a level with and 
directly fronting the sacred hill of Fourviere, the Mother 
House and Novitiate of the Congregation of St. Jos- 
eph is continually exposed to the sweet and vivifying 
glances of our Blessed Lady. It would seem that Mary 
wished to have constantly under her maternal eyes the 
beloved family of her holy Spouse. And is it not, in 
some sort, the right of the Sisters of St. Joseph to occupy 
the blessed and happy position of their Father, who lived 
with Mary, and daily met the glance of her pure and holy 
eyes ? 

Sharers, also, in a grander privilege, they, like St. 
Joseph, dwell under the same roof with Jesus ; possessing 

1 John xvli. 21. 



Success of Mother St. Johrfs Efforts. 159 

in their midst, in the Sacrament of His love, Him who 
was the joy of the Holy House of Nazareth, who is the 
eternal delight of the heavenly court. 

By the establishment of Vernaison for the aged and sick, 
and by other works of charity heretofore spoken of, Mother 
St. John fulfilled that second commandment which our 
Lord declares to be " like unto the first, " — the love and 
service of one's neighbor. 

Spiritually, temporally, administratively, all was then 
wisely accomplished in the restoration of the Congregation ; 
— yet all was done in poverty, austerity, and humility, 
without ostentation or noise; all in the spirit of St. Joseph, 
with which the Mother General was so truly replenished. 

It remained but to preserve, perfect, continue, and de- 
velop it by the like means and in the same spirit. 

The continuation of this Life will prove that Mother St. 
John was animated by Him who, as the Apostle St. 
Peter says : "begins, continues, perfects, and consolidates 
whatsoever He hath done." 



fyitit pooh. 



Mother St. John's administration and 

direction. — Wonderful increase of the 

Congregation of Lyons. — Its 

numerous and glorious 

spiritual offspring. 

CHAPTER I. 

Mother St. John's labors for the consolidation of her work. — 
Her love of regularity. — Wise disposition of affairs. — Admirable 
extension of the Congregation.— Important services rendered to 
the Church by the Sisters. 




T has been well and justly said, that, while it is 
much to conquer, it is far more to know well how 
to use the victory, by organizing, consolidating, 
and developing the conquest. By dint of humility, labor, 
wisdom, and prudence, Mother St. John had met and 
overcome all those difficulties which rise in hosts to attack 
holy and Christian works. 

To found and firmly establish the Mother House, to 
lead communities, hitherto isolated and independent, to 
affiliate themselves to it, was a reform, useful, nay, even 
necessary, as we have seen ; a reform on which depended 
the consolations of the present, the hopes of the future, 
yet one that could be brought about only by the simplicity 
of the dove combined with the prudence of the serpent. 



Consolidation of her Work. 1 6 1 

For a new creation often costs less than the uniting and 
reconciling of particular works, which, although all tend- 
ing to the same end, have yet, from time immemorial, 
attained it, each in its own way, in accordance with its 
aptitudes, conveniences, and tastes. It is, as it were, to 
form a body united, young and vigorous, out of aged and 
scattered members. Such, as we have seen, was the happy 
result of Mother St. John's labors ; it remained now but 
to perfect, develop, and extend them abroad. From that 
blessed summit of St. Bruno, from the cloisters of the 
Chartreux, as from the fountain-head, were to flow those 
streams which to-day irrigate and fertilize the provinces 
of Lyons, Touraine, Vendee, Provence, Aquitaine, Dau- 
phine, Corsica, Savoy, Piedmont, and America. The repu- 
tation of the saintly Superior of Lyons drew thither many 
chosen and beautiful souls, which, like grace-laden clouds, 
rested on that privileged hill, and fed with their pure 
waters that beneficent source. 

To maintain the purity of that source, Mother St. John 
accounted pain and labor as gain. Her own life was a mir- 
ror of religious perfection ; age, labor, fatigue, infirmities, 
multiplicity of duties were excuses which she never suffered 
to interfere with her fidelity to the least points of her rule. 

Accompanied by her assistant and counsellors, she 
would strive to be first at the general exercises; and thus, 
animating others by her example, she established the most 
perfect order and regularity in the community. 

Her visits to local houses were productive of the same 
beneficent results: the fervor of the Sisters was reani- 
mated, fidelity to employments, punctuality to the exer- 
cises, to the rule and to little things — those tissues of 
which life is composed, and to which God attaches such a 
value — were increased; wheresoever she went, the religious 
life rose, as it were, to its level, and its most beautiful 
flowers sprang up wherever she trod, 



1 62 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne 

Exterior practices of the rule are, to piety, what the 
bark is to the tree. Remove the bark from a branch, and 
it will speedily become dry; strip it from the trunk itself, 
the tree will wither away. The bark apparently is but 
a rough and coarse envelope, yet by its agency the strength 
and vigor of the tree are preserved. In like manner, it is 
by external regulations which often seem harsh and annoy- 
ing, that the vigor of the internal spirit is preserved. ' 
Hence that maxim of the spiritual life: "To live holily 
and for God, one must live according to the holy rule." 

Thoroughly penetrated with these sentiments, the 
Mother General insisted on regularity, of which she her- 
self was the first to give the example. On this point she 
was immovable. It was this preaching of example that 
gave to her orders, nay, even to her slightest suggestion, 
an irresistible power. "When Mother St. John had 
spoken," writes one of her daughters, "all was said. 
We obeyed promptly and cheerfully. When she reproved, 
we felt, we recognized our errors, and had only one de- 
sire, that of making reparation." 

One day, after having recommended to the Sisters the 
observance of little things, because all that is done in 
conformity with the Divine will and for the love of God is 
truly great, adding that those who failed therein ought to 
impose some penance on themselves, it happened that she 
went to the kitchen, entering which, she forgot to 
close the door. The Sister-cook, then busily engaged, felt 
the current of air, and, without raising her head, said : 
" Sisters who leave the door open have to kiss the floor." 
Mother St. John immediately knelt down and performed 
the penance. Looking up, the poor Sister beheld the 
Superior General prostrate on the ground. Overwhelmed 
with confusion, she offered a thousand excuses, but the 

1 Dupanloup, De VEducation. 



Her Wise Disposition of Affairs. 163 

Mother simply and pleasantly replied : " I had committed 
the fault ; it was but right I should perform the penance." 

Authority is never so strong as when upheld by the 
humility and obedience of her who exercises it. " To 
command safely and well/' says the Imitation, " one must 
know how to obey." This principle is the key to the 
ready obedience, the respect and deference accorded by 
the Sisters to Mother St. John's decisions. There is no 
part of the Superior G-enerars charge more difficult or 
more delicate, none more exposed to the clashing of 
various interests, than the removal or assignment of Sisters 
to the different missions. To the performance of this 
duty Mother St. John brought such simplicity and up- 
rightness, such purity of intention and unselfish goodness, 
as disposed every one to obedience ; and even those least 
favorably situated could not but recognize that human 
considerations had no share in her decisions. 

Before making her allotment, she took all things into 
consideration : age, services rendered, proofs of zeal, de- 
votedness, knowledge, and capacity either for teaching 
or the direction of a house, health, climate, character, 
all were duly weighed and harmonized as far as is possible 
to human weakness. Her correspondence, her letters con- 
veying counsel and encouragement, helped to perfect these 
arrangements, for in them she went directly to the point ; 
she showed such a clear knowledge of difficulties, such 
foresight in arrangement, as left nothing to chance or ar- 
bitrary interpretation. "I beg, Eev. Mother," writes the 
cure of an important parish, "that you will answer my 
letter yourself. Two lines from your pen is more satisfac- 
tory than two pages from your good secretary." 

If her correspondence was productive of such results, 
what may we not suppose was operated by her presence, 
her conversation, her intimate personal communications ? 
"How happy we were," says one of her aged religious, 



164 Life of Rev, Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

' 'under the direction of our venerable Mother! There 
was a rivalry among us as to who should be most obedient, 
most humble, and most mortified. Her example was 
continually impelling us to good, even to perfection. To 
see her profound humility one would have thought her 
the least and the last among us. Such she really was in 
her own estimation ; hence, the lower she abased herself, 
the deeper grew her children's veneration and loving re- 
spect. "When on meeting her we used to salute her," 
writes one of her first daughters, " we experienced some- 
thing of the feeling one has in passing before the Blessed 
Sacrament." 

Another tells us that when, during her novitiate, she 
used to behold her venerable Superior eating off the floor 
in the middle of the refectory with the humble simplicity 
of a little child, she was unable to restrain her tears. " I 
have often seen her," says another, " kneeling at the 
chapel door on Good Friday, with a rope around her 
neck, and kissing the feet of the Sisters." 

What an admirable thing it was — the effect, as well as 
the privilege, of true sanctity — to find this respect and 
veneration intensified the closer one was brought by duty 
or office to this worthy Mother ! With the votaries of the 
world, it is the reverse. The greatest geniuses, the 
grandest minds, sometimes lose prestige as one gets a 
closer view of them, on which account a great wit has said 
that a certain distance is a varnish necessary to set off 
human greatness. The idea is more commonly expressed 
by the saying, " No man is a hero to his valet-de-chairibre" 

Virtue, on the contrary, like the aroma of a flower, is 
perceived but the more sensibly the closer we approach to it. 

Among Mother St. John's children was to be found no 
faction, no coterie, no party ; her heart was large enough 
to embrace all, and, like the Apostle of Nations, she, by 
becoming all to all, bound them in closest union, cor 



Her Profound Humility. 1 6 5 

unum. Ah, blessed union ! union of hearts ! The sacri- 
fices necessary to accomplish it ! These were her contin- 
ual theme, the lesson she strove, daily, to impart. For, 
such is humanity, that even among the elect on earth dis- 
similarities of character are to be found; and amid the thou- 
sand incidents of common life, there must, inevitably, 
be some jar to our feelings and susceptibilities. "How- 
ever holily peopled, however happily regulated a monastery 
may be," says Mgr. Gay, " it is but a laborious school of 
perfection. It is not a dwelling inhabited by angels ; it 
is not yet Heaven." 

Eminently worthy as was the Mother General by her 
.personal character of her Sisters' filial devotion, she won 
it, also, by her own deference to her Superiors. " To fill 
well the first place," says the Imitation, " one must know 
how to take the last." In relations with Superiors, no 
Sister was more humble, docile, or submissive than she. 
Their will, their decisions, their slightest wish, was to her 
the expression of the Divine will, of which she would not 
omit or alter one iota. Blame, severity, coldness on their 
part she considered less than she deserved ; their praise 
or commendation she looked upon as the effect of their 
goodness, not of her deserts. 

How she conducted herself under severe and unmerited 
censure, as in the case of Eev. Father Bochard and under 
a year's painful penance, we have had occasion to allude to 
heretofore. 

Her silence and abnegation, yet more, her sentiments of 
self -accusation, were heroic; all had been, she said, the re- 
sult of her self-sufficiency, her pride, her want of judg- 
ment. 

It was this generous and profound humility which drew 
down the Divine benediction on her undertakings, for 
He who " putteth down the mighty from their seat," lov- 
eth also " to exalt the humble." 



1 66 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

Her intimate and continual union with God was another 
source of heavenly blessings. She undertook nothing 
without consulting Him. " Like Moses before the taber- 
nacle/' say her daughters in America, "she had incessant 
recourse to God by prayer. Our Lord in the tabernacle 
was her Adviser, her Counsellor." It is not, then, surpris- 
ing that her subjects recognized and loved in her will the 
will of God, before whom they saw she placed everything. 

The interior life, intimate union with God, the hidden 
source of piety and wisdom, have been compared to those 
subterranean streams which reveal themselves by the cool- 
ness they diffuse, and by the brilliant verdure which 
clothes the soil under which they flow. Union with God, 
the interior life is the life of Mary ; the active exterior life 
is that of Martha. They are sisters, they should dwell 
together, one sustaining the other. The interior life is 
the soul, the strength, the light of the active. 

With Mary, Mother St. John knew how to rest at her 
Saviour's feet and hear His words ; yet, at the same time, 
she could occupy herself actively, with Martha, in the di- 
vers cares imposed upon her. It was these combined 
forces which gave to her administration its grace, suavity, 
wisdom, and efficacy. 

In her hours of prayer she loved, with St. Paul, to con- 
template Jesus in His Passion, on the cross : et hunc cru- 
cifixum. We have already said that in Christianity there 
is nothing without the cross, without suffering. One 
would often wish to arrange things otherwise. 

We make plans wherein everything succeeds to our 
desires ; everything is grand, magnificent. But God has 
not in such ways wrought out our salvation ; the crib and 
the cross were different things. " There must of necessity 
be sickness, contradictions, sometimes even false brethren 
and treason," says a holy bishop. . . . " The works of God 
are operated amidst such things." 



Her Love of the Cross. 167 

The cross is, then, the practical lesson of life. Mother 
St. John had experienced the truth of these words of the 
Imitation: ' ' In the Cross is salvation; in the Cross is 
life ; in the Cross is protection from enemies ; in the 
Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness ; in the Cross is 
strength of mind : in the Cross is joy of spirit, the height 
of virtue and the perfection of sanctity." ' 

These sublime lessons of the Cross were the constant 
theme of her meditations, her great school of humility, 
patience, sweetness, sacrifice, and love. 

In truth, nothing is so well calculated to render a soul 
generous, energetic, valiant in good, as devotion to Jesus 
Crucified. How could she dread pain or fly from it, when 
her heart habitually turned to that Jesus who had shed 
His blood for her sake ? "I judged not myself to know 
anything," writes the incomparable Apostle, " but Jesus 
Christ, and Him crucified." 2 

" you, whoever you be, who have not, perhaps, the hap- 
piness of sharing our faith, if with us you will not adore 
the Cross, at least forbear to insult it ! " cries out a holy 
Bishop. 3 " For, I ask you, where should we go, henceforth, 
to learn the secret of forgetting your injustices, where 
learn to pardon, to love you ? Where would the afflicted 
seek consolation, the enfeebled look for strength, penitents 
for mercy and pardon ? In pity for the hosts of unfor- 
tunates who people this valley of tears, in pity for the 
sick, the dying, for the people, of whom you are incessantly 
talking, in pity even for yourselves, — for there will come 
a day when, abandoned by all upon earth, you will find 
the Cross of Jesus your only resource in pity, — we implore 
you, then, no longer to insult it ! " 

After Jesus, Mother St. John sought refuge with His 
Blessed Mother Mary. Although she dwelt on the Hill 

1 Imit. Bk. 2, 12. 2 I. Cor. ii. 2. 3 Mgr. Dupauloup. 



1 68 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbojinc, 

of Chartreux, one could see that her heart ever turned to 
Fourviere, to the privileged shrine of her Mother. l Pil- 
grimages to that sacred spot were the delight of her life, 
and even at the age of seventy, when her health was seri- 
ously impaired, it was her custom to steal out, long before 
dawn, from her convent, and fasting and barefoot, to climb, 
unperceived, the heights of Fourviere, where she would 
hear Mass, communicate, assist at a Mass of Thanksgiving 
and re urn in time to preside at the community exercises. 
The obligation of secrecy as to these pious excursions she 
used to implore on her companion, lest discovery should 
lead to her being debarred from a practice in which she 
found such holy delights. It is a principle of our holy 
religion that the Blessed Mother is the Dispensatrix of 
grace. Bossuet, in his time, thus spoke of this sweet 
truth, one of the consequences of the Divine maternity. 
" God," he says, "having once willed to give us Jesus 
Christ by Mary, will not change this order, because the 
gifts of God are without repentance. It is, and it ever 
will be true, that, having received by her the universal 
Principle of grace, we shall receive, through her agency, 
its divers applications in the different states and situations 
of Christian life. Her charity having so greatly contrib- 
uted to our salvation in the mystery of the Incarnation, 
which is the universal principle of grace, she will contrib- 
ute to it eternally in all those operations dependent upon 
it." Hence we see that, as God is the principle, the prim- 
ary source of all grace, Mary is its instrument, its channel. 



1 Rev. Dr. Northcote, in his work on The Celebrated Shrines of the Madonna, re- 
lates that, in 1834, while the sanctuary of Fourviere was in the hands of a sacrile- 
gious mob, the Superioress of the Sisters of St. Joseph (who, at that time, was Mother 
St. John) had the inestimable privilege of being able, under God, to save the 
Blessed Sacrament from profanation, and the sacred treasures of the sanctuary itself 
from the rapacious hands of the insurgents. Her success, which, under the circum- 
stances, was little less than miraculous, was due, undoubtedly, to Our Lady's pro- 
ection of her courageous client. —Translator. 



Her Constant Progress in Virtue. 169 

God is its Author, Mary its Dispensatrix. Actuated by 
the like sentiments, Mother St. John, even from the break 
of day, had recourse to Mary, hoping for the accomplish- 
ment of her promise in the Book of Wisdom: " I love 
them that love me, and they that in the morning early 
watch for me shall find me." 1 

" Let him that is just," says St. John in the Apoca- 
lypse, " be justified still ; and he that is holy, let him be 
sanctified still." In this respect the Saints are very dis- 
similar. Some, like St. Mary Magdalen, St. Jerome, and 
St. Augustine, have been converted to God after years of 
sin and error. Others, like St. Teresa, having begun well, 
have for a time relaxed their efforts. Both these classes 
have, according to the prophet, hastened their march 
towards Heaven, to redeem the time lost. Many, on the 
contrary, like St. Francis de Sales, and St. Jane de Chantal, 
consecrated to God from their birth, have continually ad- 
vanced in virtue without delay or relaxation. To this lat- 
ter class did Mother St. John belong. 

Childhood, girlhood, womanhood, and old age were all 
but stages of her spiritual life. She had placed, as it 
were, a mystic ladder in her heart, which she ceased not 
to ascend step by step, even to its very summit. 

Thus did she prove herself a worthy daughter of him 
whose name signifies increase : Filius accrescens Joseph ; 
and by her continual, undeviating progress in perfection, 
she merited that the like advancement should attend her un- 
dertakings ; for as the Holy Scripture says, the Lord pun- 
ishes oft in those things wherein man has sinned, so, also, 
does He act according to the same just law in recompensing 
merit. 

St. Jane de Chantal, whose entire life was an ascension 
to the heights of sublime sanctity, was granted to behold, 



1 Prov. viii. 17. 



i 70 Life of Rev. Mother St. Jo Jin Fontbonne. 

in her own life-time, a prodigious increase of her monas- 
teries of the Visitation, of which she left eighty-six at her 
death. 

St. Teresa, at the close of her mortal career, could count 
sixteen monasteries of Barefooted Carmelite nuns, and 
fourteen of friars, either founded or reformed by her. 

The humble Superior of Lyons had the happiness of 
founding two hundred religious houses of the Congrega- 
tion, without counting the numerous colonies which went 
forth from the same source, as we shall see later on, to 
edify and sanctify distant lands. 

Lyons, Mary's own city, has always loved and sought 
after the Daughters of St. Joseph. We have seen how, 
previous to the Eevolution of '93, she had entrusted to 
them nearly all her charitable institutions. To these, after 
the rehabilitation of the Congregation, she added others 
by placing them as adoptive mothers in her Lyceum, and 
appointing them teachers and directresses of her normal 
school for girls. Thus she has constituted them, in a 
great measure, the guardians of her happiness, of her 
future well-being. Would that other cities would profit by 
this salutary example, and thus save France from the evils 
about to be entailed on her through the domination of in- 
fidel and irreligious partisans! 

Their aim — no longer concealed — is to substitute laics 
for religious : to banish the latter from the school, the 
orphan asylum, the hospital. Now religious, having 
neither husband, children, nor relations around them, have 
more leisure for study and class- preparation. 

Their minds, free and disengaged from family cares, 
have more energy, more spirit and aptitude for intellect- 
ual and scholastic pursuits. 

Again, their pure and virgin hearts are given wholly to 
their duties and their pupils. The latter are their family, 
the beneficiaries of those zealous and affectionate cares of 



The Religions and the Laic. ■ 171 

which the lay instructor is, justly, most prodigal to his own 
private circle. 

Let us, for the moment, consider the different phases of 
the lay instructress' life : as a young girl, expecting mar- 
riage ; as a bride ; as a wife and mother ; — do such con- 
ditions appear favorable to the self-sacrifice, the study 
necessary to a successful teacher ? Do they not rather 
convey ideas of preoccupation, of cares and solicitudes in- 
compatible with a teacher's obligations ? 

There are, no doubt, exceptions, but exceptions serve 
but to prove the rule. It is on this account that, in many 
places of the United States, married women are ineligible 
to positions in the public schools. 

The religious virgin, on the contrary, has no interests 
that militate against those of her class. The school-room 
is to her a sanctuary, wherein, even more than the ancient 
vestal, she is bound to feed and increase the sacred flame 
of virtue and knowledge. Free from the trammels of social 
life, she can devote to school, asylum, or hospital, every 
hour of her life; she is ready to undertake the greatest sacri- 
fices, even unto complete self-immolation, which is not to 
be expected from a wife or mother, save in the case of her 
own family. This consideration has drawn from M. Wad- 
dington, a Protestant, and Minister of Public Instruction in 
France, the significant avowal: " Among the Congregation- 
ists, self-devotion is the rule; with seculars, the exception." 

So thoroughly did the comprehensive mind of the First 
Napoleon grasp this principle, that he incorporated it in 
the constitution of his lay university, as will be seen from 
Article 101 of the Decree of 1808: "In future, masters 
and censors of lyceums, principals and regents of colleges, 
the teachers also in such colleges, shall be bound to celi- 
bacy and the common life." 

But such a parody could not long exist. True religious, 
virgins not in name but in reality, are the offspring of 



1 72 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

faith and the grace of God imparted by the sacraments. 
Such peerless jewels gleam only on the brow of Christ's 
immortal Spouse, the Church. 

It was these exceptional advantages of the religious state 
which made the convents and monasteries of by-gone days 
shine out as beacon-lights in the darkest and most critical 
periods of European history, as both Balmes and Guizot, 
two of our most celebrated modern philosophers, declare. 
" To deny this," says Father Monsabre, " is to invite the 
counter-blows of history, and to suppose that men are so 
insensate or so indolent as to swallow, unquestioning, the 
errors and slanderous misrepresentations of our revolution- 
ary adversaries, as though there were no historical docu- 
ments to disprove them." 

Yes ; notwithstanding base calumnies to the contrary, 
the Church has ever labored for the enfranchisement, the 
enlightenment of the people; whereas the infidel, the free- 
thinker, by the pen of his acknowledged patriarch, Vol- 
taire, declares that " the people are not made for instruc- 
tion, for reason .... that no one has ever pretended to 

enlighten servants or shoemakers that is the part 

of apostles ; and that the portion of the laborer or artisan 
is the goad, the yoke, and a little hay" 

Of all Catholic creations none has been more glorious, 
more fruitful, and more beneficent than the various Congre- 
gations of Brothers and Sisters devoted to the education and 
care of youth. 1 Beligion says to them: " I wish you to be- 
come laborers in the cause of popular education. That you 



1 Since everything pleads so powerfully in favor of schools directed by religious, 
why are our rulers so eager to secularize the schools ? Ah, it is not hard to reach 
the concealed motive ! To banish God and the idea of religion is their ultimate 
aim, to attain which they see but one way,— to dechristianize the education of 
youth. Religious teachers defeat their satanic scheme ; they must then give 
place to seculars, among whom the most irreligious are often the most sought af- 
ter and applauded. Whence it follows, says M. Chesnelong, that laicization means 
the dechristianizing, the demoralizing of the school. 



Services Rendered to the Church. 1 7$ 

may be wholly consecrated to this work, you shall bind your- 
selves to God by the three grand acts of religious renunci- 
ation. You shall possess neither family joys nor priestly 
honors. Your lives shall be spent in poverty and obscurity, 
in labors continuous, wearisome, unrecognized, and unap- 
preciated. But your work shall be noble, your recompense, 
glorious; and you shall be sustained in all dangers, under 
every difficulty, by two grand motives, the love of God 
and the love of man." 

Under the influence of such sublime lessons, Mother St. 
John and her daughters entered on the educational and 
charitable works which the Department of the Ehone — 
then less occupied with politics and more wisely attentive 
to its best interests — eagerly and gratefully confided to 
them. 

In the Department of the Loire, the venerable Mother 
had the consolation of founding one hundred and fifteen 
houses of St. Joseph. Falling on good ground, the labors 
of the Sisters have brought forth fruit in the numbers of 
young persons eager to embrace the life and emulate the 
virtues of their instructresses. Families have glorified 
God for the religious vocations of their members, and 
gladly made the sacrifice of the brightest ornaments of 
their home and hearth. 

After a pastoral visitation of his diocese, comprising the 
above-mentioned departments, Mgr. cle Pins, astonished 
and delighted at the good effected by the Sisters, hastened 
to the Chartreux to congratulate and thank Mother St. 
John and the Congregation. But she, referring all glory 
to God, blessed Him for having deigned to employ such 
unworthy instruments for the good of the Church and the 
salvation of souls. 

The Departments of the Rhone and Loire were not the 
only places fertilized by the prayers and toil of her Sisters. 
Corsica, Herault, La Vendee, Poitou, Aude, the Lower 



174 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne. 

Alps, Creuse, Saone-et-Loire, Isere, Cote-d'or, and Allier 
soon became harvest-fields for the Daughters of St, Joseph. 
Thus does God bless humble souls ; thus have the virtues 
and humility of the Superior drawn down the Divine 
benedictions on the poor labors of her subjects, who attri- 
bute their success only to "Him who giveth the increase." 



CHAPTER II. 

Other foundations from Lyons. — Mother St. Joseph, Foundress of 
the Congregation of St. Joseph in Belley, Gap, and Bordeaux. 
— Short account of her life and labors. 




HITS, like a tree that nourishes in rich and fertile 
soil, the Mother House at Lyons continued, 
every year, to strike its roots more deeply, while 
it developed new and vigorous branches, whose delightful 
shade and delicious fragrance attracted numbers of souls 
enamored of the beauty of the Divine Spouse, and eager 
to contract their spiritual nuptials under the protection of 
the glorious Patriarch St. Joseph. 

In the words of Ecclesiasticus, it might have said: "I 
have stretched out my branches as the turpentine-tree, 
and my branches are of honor and grace." For as 
formerly the glorious Abbey of Citeaux employed its 
superabundance of spiritual riches in establishing colonies 
whose glory it was to be the Daughters of Citeaux, so from 
the parent-hive of the Chartreux of Lyons began to go forth 
swarms of zealous workers, bearing not only the name but 
the spirit of St. Joseph on every side. 

From 1823 to 1840 were successively founded three im- 
portant colonies of St. Joseph, those of Belley, Gap, and 
Bordeaux, under Mother St. Joseph Chanay, born at 
Villefranche, January 12, 1795. Endowed from her earliest 
youth with extraordinary gifts and graces, Mother St. 
Joseph received the habit of St. Joseph and was trained to 
the religious life in the community of St. Pierre-le-Vieux, as 
we have before remarked. Having made her profession in 



176 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne. 

1817 at Chazay-sur-Ain, she was appointed directress of 
the boarding-school. Her virtue and zeal, -which even 
then gave promise of apostolic vigor, operated marvels of 
grace and effected unhoped-for good in that locality, so 
deeply imbued with the irreligious spirit of the Eevolution, 
as, even then, to expose priests and religious to daily 
insult. 

Thoroughly convinced of her abilities, Eev. Father Bo- 
chard, in 1819, sent her to found a House at Belley, then 
a part of the diocese of Lyons. In giving her her obedi- 
ence, he added: "You must, my good Sister, expect to 
encounter many contradictions, for no one in Belley 
wants the Sisters of St. Joseph." This was too true, 
as even the cure of the cathedral, M. Guillemot, and 
Father Bochard's own family, who resided at Belley, 
were most decided in their opposition to the Sisters. 
This was but poor encouragement for the heavy and 
delicate task which obedience obliged Sister St. Joseph, 
then only twenty-four years of age, to assume. Weeping 
and trembling, diffident of self, but confiding in God, she 
assumed the charge imposed by the Divine Will, and He 
whose ears are open to the prayers of the humble, blessed 
her undertaking in an extraordinary manner. Opposition 
vanished as if by enchantment, and Bev. Father Guillemot 
became the zealous friend, tender father, and devoted pro- 
tector of the convent of St. Joseph. During the ten re- 
maining years of his life, says the author of the Life of 
Rev. Mother St. Joseph, he never ceased thanking God for 
the "treasure He had given him in spite of himself."* 
His confidence in Mother St. Joseph was unbounded; he 
took her advice on all matters, and there never arose be- 
tween them even the shadow of a disagreement. 
In 1823, the ancient see of Belley was re-established, and 

1 Life of Rev. Mother St. Joseph. 



Mother St. Joseph at Belley. i 7 7 

Mgr. Devie, Vicar-General of Yalence, was appointed its 
Bishop. This holy and learned prelate, one of the great- 
est of modern times, recognized, at his first interview, 
Mother St. Joseph's rare merit, and the amount of good 
that could be operated through her, and he resolved to 
support her with the whole weight of his episcopal author- 
ity. It was his wish, however, that the Sisters in Belley 
should form themselves into a diocesan Congregation, in- 
dependent of the Mother House of Lyons, and under the 
government of Mother St. Joseph. The first part of his 
plan was soon carried out: to succeed in the second was a 
more difficult matter. 

Claimed, at once, by the Superiors at Lyons as a pro- 
fessed religious of that diocese, and by Mgr. Devie as nec- 
essary to the work he had inaugurated, Mother St. Joseph's 
heart instinctively turned to Lyons. But Providence 
having, by some extraordinary circumstances, manifested 
Its will, the authorities at Lyons yielded, and the youthful 
religious was installed as Superior General of Belley, where 
a novitiate had been previously opened by order of Eev. 
Father Bochard. This novitiate having been afterwards 
transferred to Bourg, the community has become generally 
known as the Sisters of St. Joseph of Bourg. 

The zeal and devotedness of the new Superior rose in 
proportion to the obligations of her office, and so wonder- 
ful was the progress of the work, that at a retreat given at 
Belley, July, 1824, the religious numbered one hundred 
and twenty-seven. ! At the close of this retreat Mother St. 
Joseph, through humility, resigned her office of Superior 
General, but was immediately appointed Assistant. A 
short time afterwards she was sent to Ferney to found a 
House of the Congregation. To prepare her for this ar- 



(1) The Congregation of Belley now numbers 1625 religious, who direct 223 schools 
and numerous works of charity. 



1 78 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

duous mission, Mgr. Devie had given her a course of 
special reading and instructions, directed mainly against 
the errors of Protestantism, with which the inhabitants 
were deeply imbued, and also against the impious ideas of 
the free-thinkers, who, in homage to Voltaire's memory, 
flocked thither from all parts of Europe. Those very 
people who laugh us to scorn for reverencing relics or per- 
forming pilgrimages to the shrines of our Blessed Lady 
and the Saints, see nothing ridiculous in their veneration 
of Luther, or their pilgrimages to the dwelling-place of a 
man as devoid of purity as of probity ; as averse to faith 
and loyalty as to mercy and humanity. 

Led by obedience and humility, Mother St. Joseph took 
up her abode in the little fortress of Voltairianism ; and, 
armed with faith and ineffable charity for the miseries of 
the poor, she triumphed over all obstacles, and effected the 
good so much desired by the Bishop of Belley. 

But the demon, enraged at the loss his cause thus sus- 
tained, endeavored to make even the charity of his implac- 
able enemy redound to her confusion. From the arrival of 
the religious, the Protestants had regarded them with great 
ill-feeling, but their exasperation reached its height on be- 
holding the ascendancy which Mother St. Joseph was daily 
acquiring among the people. 

To destroy this influence they devised the following plan : 
On a certain day, they assembled together their most astute 
ministers and the principal inhabitants of the town ; and 
then sent a message to the zealous and charitable Mother 
that a Protestant, at the point of death, wished to see her 
about his conversion. Accompanied by one of her relig- 
ious, she hastened to the designated spot, only to find 
what a snare had been laid for her. Recommending her- 
self interiorly to God and placing all her confidence in Him, 
she remained calm and tranquil, merely expressing her 
satisfaction at finding so many men thoroughly alive, 



Mother St. Joseph at Bel ley. 1 79 

where she had expected to meet only one in the agony of 
death. 

Although this sally turned, for a moment, the laugh on 
her side, her opponents opened the attack by a running 
fire of calumnies against the Catholic religion, and objec- 
tions to the religious state. « 

God, according to His promise, put into the mouth 
of his faithful servant such solid and unanswerable 
arguments, couched in the very language of Holy Writ, 
that her adversaries withdrew, silenced and abashed, 
from a contest in which they had hoped to be victor- 
ious. 

Thus did God, who by the foolish things of this world 
loves to confound the strong, make use of a humble 
religious woman to bring to naught the stratagems of those 
haughty and over-confident sectaries. 

When about to take her departure, Mother St. Joseph, 
turning unexpectedly to one of the gentlemen who had 
been most virulent in his attacks, said : "In you God will 
some day consummate His w r ork, for you will become a 
Catholic, and will die the death of a Saint." 

Laughing scornfully at such an unlikely prophecy, the 
party dispersed, inveighing loudly against ' ( the indomit- 
able fanaticism of that nun." But her words were literally 
accomplished ; the gentleman himself came afterwards to 
Mother St. Joseph to declare the fact of his conversion ; 
and, in 1851, he died a most holy death. 

Many such special lights for the conversion of sinners 
were bestowed on Mother St. Joseph, but the details of 
these and other extraordinary graces are recorded in her 
Life. 

In 1837, Mgr. de la Croix, Vicar-General of Belley, who, 
as Superior of the Sisters of St. Joseph, had co-operated in 
the undertakings of Mother St. Joseph, was appointed 
Bishop of Gap. Before taking possession of his see, he 



180 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbomie. 

begged Mgr. Devie to allow her to found in Gap a noviti- 
ate, which should become the source of future establish- 
ments of the Sisters of St. Joseph. Great as was this sacri- 
fice, the Bishop of Belley resigned himself to it in favor of 
his late Vicar-General, with the proviso, however, that, 
after five years' residence in Gap, Mother St. Joseph should 
return to Belley. 

The Institute of St. Joseph had been established in Gap 
in 1671, twenty years after its foundation in Puy ; and, 
at the time of the Revolution, that diocese had possessed 
several communities. After almost half a century of inter- 
ruption, Mother St. Joseph was called to link the present 
with the past, by the re -establishment of her Order in that 
part of Dauphine. The early days of her foundation were 
days of difficulty, trial, and extraordinary privation, not 
only of food and common necessaries, but almost of a place 
of shelter. The sharp air of the Alpine region proved, 
also, very injurious to the already enfeebled frame of the 
Foundress. But God, who is the God of obedience, sup- 
ported her ; and Divine Providence, on which she relied to 
an extent which seems audacious to human prudence, 
failed her not. Destitute as she was of both funds and pro- 
visions, she opened in poverty the novitiate of Gap, which, 
at the end of that year, contained thirty novices and postu- 
lants. She opened, also, a boarding-school and classes for 
day-pupils, which were numerously attended. 

At the close of the annual retreat, Mgr. Devie, then on 
a visit to Gap, gave the religious habit to a large number 
of postulants, and received the vows of several novices. 
The holy prelate was affected even to tears, and rejoiced ex- 
ceedingly at finding, amid the Alps, so vigorous and fruitful 
an offshoot from his beloved Congregation of St. Joseph. 

At the expiration of her first three years' term of office, 
the state of Mother St. Joseph's health obliged her to re- 
turn to Belley, but the Mother House and novitiate of 



Her Veneration for Mother St. John. 1 8 1 

Gap were then solidly established, and affiliated convents 
had been opened. 

At Aix, whither Mother St. Joseph was sent for the 
benefit of the baths, she had the inexpressible consolation 
of meeting Eev. Mother St. John of Lyons. To see, to 
consult, to listen to her whom Mother St. Joseph's biog- 
rapher calls ( ' the living tradition of the spirit and rules 
of the Order/' was, as it were, to rest like a child in the 
arms of her Mother, and pour out her heart to one who 
could understand its sorrows. Mother St. Joseph had la- 
bored hard, had suffered much. In the future lay con- 
cealed a heavier task and more bitter sorrows, for, here 
below, all that is for good must be signed with the cross, 
the emblem of salvation. Was it not a sweet and loving act 
of Divine Providence, thus to bring together the aged 
Restorer of the Congregation and the young Superior, des- 
tined so greatly to augment its posterity ? Who more 
proper to reanimate the courage of the latter than she who 
had had the strength to confess Christ and cling to her 
vows, in spite of trial, dungeon, chains, and threatened 
death ? 

Accustomed to recognize the hand of Providence in all 
the events of life, Mother St. Joseph profited by the occa- 
sion thus presented, of studying, as from the very fountain- 
head, the traditions and regulations of the Congregation ; 
and, desirous of having the Sisters' habit conform in every 
particular to that of Mother St. John, she copied its every 
detail. The guim/pe she at that time made, has ever since 
served as pattern to the Sisters of Bordeaux, which com- 
munity was founded a little later by Mother St. Joseph. 

Wonderful are the workings of Divine Providence ! 
This woman, truly extraordinary, who had already accom- 
plished so many works which revealed the impress of faith 
and charity, was, at that time, says the writer of her Life, 
regarded by her Superiors as a worn-out servant, a broken 



1 8 2 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonnc 

instrument, no longer fit, either physically or mentally, for 
the works of God. In the depth of her humility such also 
was her own opinion. 

And yet, from the depth of this abasement, Heaven was 
about to call her to a most important undertaking, to the 
crowning work of her life ! 

Mgr. Donnet, Archbishop of Bordeaux, who, as Cure of 
Villefranche, had intimately known and greatly admired 
Mother St. Joseph, had been inspired by God to found, in 
his diocese, a novitiate of the Congregation of St. Joseph. 
To Mgr. Devie he looked for the help necessary to the work, 
and after much negotiation, he finally wrote : " Send to 
us, I beg, as soon as possible, that good Sister St. Joseph 
whom I have known for so long a time. If you can spare 
her a little colony of two or three Sisters, we shall be so 
much the better pleased." 

Encouraged to assume the burden, Mother St. Joseph 
set out for Bordeaux, taking Lyons, however, in her way, 
that thus she might revisit the cradle of her religious life, 
and recommend herself, her Sisters, and her work to Our 
Lady of Fourviere, prostrate at whose feet she spent near- 
ly an entire day. A Divine peace took possession of her 
soul ; God, by the hands of His Blessed Mother, seemed to 
bless the work, and to show her, in the future, a host of vir- 
gin laborers, who should devote themselves to the instruc- 
tion of youth and the sanctification of souls. 

On the 10th of December, 1840, Mother St. Joseph, 
with two companions, arrived at Bordeaux, where the third 
Sister joined them somewhat later. At the profession of 
one of these religious held in the chapel of the Ladies of 
the Sacred Heart, on the 23d of the same month, Mgr. 
Donnet said : " Look at these pious ladies, who have trav- 
ersed France in answer to our appeal. I foresee that this 
day I plant in your midst the roots of a great tree. It is 
the mustard-seed of the Gospel. I drop' it into earth, but 



Her Heroic Virtues. 1 83 

God will give it increase, so that one day you shall behold 
it overshadowing my whole diocese." 

His previsions have been realized. The Institute of St. 
Joseph in the diocese of Bordeaux numbers, at present, 
three hundred and sixty religious, who have charge of 
three orphanages, seven boarding-schools, and about forty- 
four day-schools, including those under State control. 

We pass over in silence the details of the work, remark- 
ing only, that ia Bordeaux, as in Gap and Belley, its solid 
basis was the profound humility of the Superior, a virtue in 
which she had been most sedulously exercised by her direc- 
tors, the Bishop of Beliey especially. 

A man of lively faith as well as a profound theologian, 
this prelate was far from rejecting her extraordinary super- 
natural gifts, but he feared the danger of illusion, to 
assure her against which he caused her to tread the path 
of constant humiliation. Thus did he prove her as gold 
is tried in the crucible, and strengthen in her soul that 
root of humility, from whose hidden sweetness the other 
virtues derive their heavenly odor. Her confidence in 
Providence seemed to others sometimes a tempting of God; 
but it was a filial boldness, to which His Divine Majesty so 
marvellously condescended, that Mgr. Devie was compelled 
to exclaim : " It is really wonderful ! Her course through 
life has been one continued miracle." 

Of poverty she, like the Patriarch of Assisi, was an ar- 
dent lover. When, at the opening of Bordeaux, the Sisters' 
trunks formed the whole furniture of the convent, serving 
now as chairs, again as tables, and at night as beds, she 
was supremely happy ; and at Gap she rejoiced at the fact 
that she had not enough money to redeem a letter. 

" Great order, rigid economy, many labors, many pri- 
vations are," she used to say, ' f the strongest foundations of 
a religious house : and it is by these means we are enabled 
to assist the poor." 



184 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

Speaking of St. Teresa's foundations, M. Boudon rep- 
resents her as in the midst of a forest of crosses. The same 
may be said of the works undertaken by Mother St. Joseph. 
Long and painful illnesses, trials within and without, 
desolation and a sense of abandonment by God, threats of 
death, — all beset her path. On one occasion she gave vent 
to her feelings in the following words : " When I remem- 
ber the inconstancy and injustice of men, even of Saints, 
I pray God not to let me live to make further proof 
of it. However, I will what He wills, and pardon every- 
body with my whole heart." 

Worn out by the sorrows and trials attendant on three 
diocesan foundations, she died in 1853, in the odor of sanctity. 
A friend, unaware of her death, having asked M. Vianney, 
the saintly Cure of Ars, to say Mass for her restoration to 
health, he smilingly replied : " She is dead. She is no long- 
er in need of it ; " and he refused to say the Mass. This 
proves that the holy Cure must have received special rev- 
elation of the death and eternal salvation of this predes- 
tined soul. Long and painfully had she labored in the 
harvest-field ; may we not believe that, when presented 
before the Father of the family, the Lord of the harvest, 
she heard the consoling words : " Well done, good and 
faithful servant ! Enter into the joy of thy Lord " ? 

" Going they went and wept, casting their seeds," says 
the Royal Prophet. " But coming, they shall come with 
joyfulness, carrying their sheaves." 

We shall conclude this sketch of Mother St. Joseph's 
life by the testimony of the great Cardinal Donnet himself. 

" Mother St. Joseph," he says, " was ever to her commu- 
nity a perfect model of the religious spirit. Her wise ad- 
ministration was visibly seconded by Heaven. To the world 
she has given an admirable example of piety and charity ; 
and to souls desirous of acquiring perfection, we may hold 
up her life as a realization of its most beautiful precepts/' 



CHAPTER III. 

Mother St. John Marcoux founds the Congregation of St. Joseph 
in Oulias and Chamb6ry . — Development of that Congregation 
under Mother Felicite Veyrat. — Establishments in Denmark, 
Scandinavia, Russia and South America. — Foundations of Rome, 
Annecy, India, and England. — The Foundations of Ajaccio and 
other places in Corsica. — Mme. de la Roche jacquelin provides 
for establishments in La Vendue and Touraine. — The Sisters are 
asked for America. 




N August, 1812, Cardinal Fesch, who had accom- 
panied the Empress Josephine and her court to 
Aix-les-Bains, was led to notice how deficient in 
religious instruction were the young girls of that town. 
After a consultation with Mgr. de Soiies, Bishop of Mont 
Blanc, it was decided that a colony of the Sisters of St. 
Joseph from the Mother House at Lyons should be estab- 
lished there ; and at the Cardinal's special request, Sister 
St. John Marcoux, of whose rare educational talents he had 
had proof, was appointed Superior. 

This young religious, born at Andance in Ardeche in 
1785, was adorned with precious gifts of nature and of 
grace. Formed in the sweet school of the Cross, in the 
midst of that austere Community of the Rue de la Bourse, 
and under the direction of Mother St. John, she there im- 
bibed those lessons of solid virtue which, in the designs of 
God, she was afterwards to impart to others. She it was 
whom we have heard proclaiming the joy and delights 
drawn in that blessed house from the bitterness of interior 
and exterior mortification. 



1 86 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

In 1814, she was called to Chambery, but on her return 
to Lyons in the summer of 1817, for the annual retreat, 
she was appointed to another mission which called for 
special virtue and talents. Her children in Savoy had re- 
course in their distress to the sanctuary of Our Lady of 
Myans, and she whose mediation has never been sought 
in vain, granted their petition. Providence permitted 
that obstacles should prevent the accomplishment of 
the proposed work, and Mother St. John was restored to 
Savoy. 

In 1824, however, the Cardinal having resolved to found 
in Eome a house of St. Joseph under her direction, she was a 
second time recalled to Lyons, to prepare for her important 
mission. His project again, however, failed; and as Mgr. 
de Pins, Administrator of Lyons, then wished to establish 
the Sisters at Oulias in the Diocese of Albi, Mother St. 
John, with the thirteen religious originally named for Eome, 
was ordered to go thither. A true daughter of obedience, 
despite the attraction that drew her to her foundations in 
Savoy, despite the sorrow and desolation of her subjects 
there, she, without a word of objection, entered on her 
new charge. " It is necessary for my advancement in 
virtue," said she, "that I should renounce all that tends 
to my satisfaction in life." 

At Saint Pons, a parish in the diocese of Montpellier, 
whose cure was a friend of Mgr. de Pins, several Sisters 
were left to open a house; the remainder continued their 
journey to Oulias. As an instance of that wonderful 
increase with which God has ever blessed the Institute, 
we may here mention that that colony to-day numbers 
three hundred religious, whose houses extend over the six 
Departments of the South, wherein they operate great 
good. 

Mother St. John, however, remained but a short time at 
On lias. God had destined her for a great work in Savoy, 



A Queens Friendship for the Sisters. 187 

to which she was providentially restored in 1824. Mgr. 
Bigex, Archbishop of Chambery, entered into an agree- 
ment with the Superiors at Lyons, whereby Chambery 
became a separate diocesan Congregation, of which he ap- 
pointed Mother St. John first Superior General. Estab- 
lishments had already been made at Motte-Servolex, Turin, 
and Saint- Jean-de-Maurienne; others were now asked for at 
Pignerol, Moutiers, Montmelian, Saint-Pierre-d'Albigny, 
and divers other places. 

The extraordinary virtue and charmingly simple man- 
ners of the new Superior, while proving her the true 
child of her spiritual Mother, gave her a wonderful and 
mysterious power of attracting souls to God. We have 
seen in what esteem she was held by Cardinal Fesch and 
all her ecclesiastical Superiors. Queen Hortense, the 
CardinaFs niece, who had become acquainted at Aix with 
the Sisters of St. Joseph, desired, ever after, to keep up a 
correspondence with their Superior. In the <e Memoirs of 
Queen Hortense of Holland," by Mile. Cochelet, we read: 
" The Queen was anxious to see and converse with the 
Sisters who had watched and prayed by the remains of her 
friend, the Baroness de Brol, after the sad accident that 
had deprived her of life. . . . Among those Sisters was one 
called Sister St. John, the Superior, who appeared to be 
truly an angel on earth. The Queen met her frequently 
and became greatly attached to her. ( Behold/ she would 
say, ' there, indeed, is true virtue on earth ! And we, 
proud creatures that we are, are nothing in presence of 

such angelic abnegation We must go sometimes to 

visit those worthy religious. From them we shall receive 
lessons of practical virtue, from Sister St. John especially; 
and it seems to us, we shall return improved/" 

If her success as Superior proved her admirable adminis- 
trative talents, the closing years of her life, as a simple 
religious, revealed, more strikingly, the solid virtues and 



1 88 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

sublime self-annihilation of this true daughter of the Saint 
of Nazereth. 

Kesigning into the hands of the Archbishop of Chambery, 
in 1843, her office of General Superior, she, by earnest 
entreaty, obtained permission to retire as a simple religious 
to the Community of La Bauche, where, for ten years, she 
edified the whole Congregation by her spirit of mortification, 
prayer, and obedience. Her favorite devotion, strength- 
ened by the example and instructions of her early Mistress 
and Mother, was the adorable Passion of our Lord. " Oh, 
how she loved, in her last illness," write the Sisters of Cham- 
bery, " to clasp to her heart the image of her crucified Ke- 
deemer ! How eagerly she pressed it to her lips ! It was from 
the Crucifix she drew that patience and resignation which so 
greatly edified all the Sisters who waited on her. She 
never spoke of her sufferings, so that we were able to judge 
of them only by their outward effects." On the 10th of 
May, 1855, this true daughter of St. Joseph, this faithful 
lover of the humility and abnegation of the Cross, entered 
into her eternal reward. 

Our sketch of the Congregation of Chambery would be 
incomplete, did we fail to mention Mother M. Felicite, 
who, succeeding Mother St. John Marcoux, thoroughly or- 
ganized the community, and brought it to that state of de- 
velopment which renders it, at the present time, so potent 
for good. This admirable religious, known in the world 
as Josephine Yeyrat, 1 seems to have received in baptism 
not only the name but a supernatural attraction to de- 
votion to St. Joseph. Educated in the Pensionnat of the 
Sisters of St. Joseph at Chambery, she petitioned to be re- 

1 She was sister to the poet Veyrat, who, in his immortal Ode, A ma Sceur, in 
his most celebrated work, La Coupe de VExtt, expresses his sentiments at her en- 
trance into religion. To her exertions he was indebted for his recall from exile by 
the king, and for the still greater grace of restoration to the arms of his Mother the 
Church, in whose service he employed the later years of his brief life. (See Tin 
Poete Savolsien, Jean-Pierre Veyrat, by A. Weiss, Geneva, 1S84.) -Translator. 



Mother M. FSlicite and her Work, 1 89 

ceived into that community, which she entered in 1830, 
at the age of fifteen. Mother St. John was not slow to 
perceive her great natural and mental abilities, and extra- 
ordinary virtue, and she was appointed successively Mis- 
tress of Novices and Assistant. After Mother St. John's res- 
ignation, she, at the age of twenty-nine, was unanimously 
elected Superior, a choice which was confirmed by succeed- 
ing elections for forty-two years. Her Life, written by the 
Abbe Bouchage — from the second edition of which these 
details have principally been taken — presents a wonder- 
ful picture of her laborious and holy career, but we shall 
content ourselves with giving proof here of that extraor- 
dinary development to which we have alluded. 

In 1854, she founded the Province of Moulins ; in 1856, 
that of Denmark ; in 1858, that of Brazil, South America ; 
in 1862, that comprising the houses in Norway, Sweden, and 
Eussia, and in 1876, by annexation, that of Rome, which 
had been founded in 1839, as we shall see. These, with 
the Province of Chambery, comprising in all ninety-two 
houses, and over eight hundred religious, she organized 
into a Provincial Congregation under the headship of the 
Mother House at Chambery, for which she obtained the 
final approbation of the Holy See in a Brief of Pius IX., 
dated July 30th, 1875. During the terrible scourge of 
cholera, which in 1854 and 1867 desolated her country, this 
valiant Superior and her heroic Sisters offered themselves as 
public nurses ; seeking by preference the poorest and most 
desperate cases ; and in documents issued at that time by 
the different municipal authorities, we find ample and grate- 
ful testimony to the Sisters' self-devotion and efficiency. 

In the disastrous war of 1870-71, Mother Felicite trans- 
formed the asylums into hospitals, installed the Sisters as 
nurses, and organized, under the presidency of the Count- 
ess de Beauregard, the Society of the Ladies of Mercy, to 
attend the sick and wounded. 



190 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbounc. 

"The privilege of a Superior," says Pere Olivaint, "is 
to be a victim; he is constituted Superior in Jesus Christ 
for that end." In virtue of this law Mother Felicite's ex- 
istence had been for years a series of infirmities, but the 
last sixteen months of her life were wholly spent upon the 
cross. During the Holy Week of 1885, she shared, even 
beyond what seemed the limit of human endurance, in 
the chalice of her suffering Lord. At last, fortified with 
all the spiritual graces of Holy Church, even the Benedic- 
tion of our Holy Father, Leo XIII. , which was telegraphed 
to her by His Eminence Cardinal Howard, the Protector of 
the Congregation of Chambery, she entered into her re- 
ward on Easter Monday, April 6th, 1885, in the seventy- 
first year of her age, and the fifty-sixth of her religious life. 
Previous to her death, holding in her hand the blessed Sign 
of our Redemption, she blessed the Sisters individually, 
and her last words were: "Omy daughters, let us be 
Saints: all is comprised in that." 

Among the first foundations made from Chambery, those 
of Turin, Saint- Jean-de-Maurienne, Tarentaise, Moutiers, 
Aosta and Pignerol, in the Sardinian States, have become 
independent communities, having their Mother Houses at 
the places above named. 

The foundation in Rome, which Cardinal Fesch had 
failed to make in 1824, was brought about in 1839, under 
the following circumstances : 

The pious Countess Luzof, the Austrian Ambassadress, 
having noticed that Rome, otherwise so richly endowed 
with societies and religious Orders, was still in want of 
some of the more recently founded Congregations, devoted 
to external works and the general service of humanity, was 
anxious to secure for the Eternal City this great advantage. 
To compass her object she employed the mediation of the 
Marchioness de Berol, who prevailed with the Superiors of 



Foundations of Rome and A nnecy. 191 

the Sisters of St. Joseph 1 to send some religious to Eome. 
The first work undertaken was the instruction of poor 
children, whose numbers increased so rapidly that, in a 
short time, the building provided could no longer contain 
them. In her perplexity, the good Ambassadress had re- 
course to the munificence of Gregory XVI., to whose pa- 
ternal goodness the Sisters are indebted for their house in 
the Via Maurino, near the Eoman Forum. 3 They have, 
moreover, a Pensionnat and day-school at St. Mary Major, 
and three other schools in the city, besides the direction 
of the (Euvres des Petits Artisans; schools at Albano, 
Veroli, and Ceccano, with school and hospital at Ceprano. 
In 1876, the Eoman Province, as before mentioned, became, 
by annexation, a part of the Chambery Congregation. 

The opening of the first House of St. Joseph in Annecy 
is due to that noble benefactress of the Congregation, the 
Countess de la Eochejacquelin, daughter of the Duchess 
de Duras, who, having been married to the Prince de 
Talmont, was left a widow at the age of eighteen. Made a 
sharer in the fortunes of the Bourbons by her marriage 
with Count de la Eochejacquelin, she was compelled to 
leave France after the Eevolution of 1830. During her 
sojourn at Annecy, she grieved to find among the children, 
those of the lower classes, especially, an almost absolute 
want of religious education. The Bishop, while acknowl- 
edging the fact, deplored his inability to remedy the evil, 
destitute as he was of funds wherewith to provide schools 
and teachers. Great was Mgr. Eey's joy and surprise when 
the Countess offered to defray the expenses herself ; and 
with grateful tears he blessed God for having sent him so 
generous a benefactress. 

By a providential coincidence, the first house of the 
Visitation, called La Galerie, sequestrated during the 

1 Most probably at Turin. 2 Mother Hcuse of the Koman Province. 



192 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

Revolution, was then offered for sale by the family in 
possession. 1 

The Bishop rejoiced at being able to withdraw from 
secular hands that "parterre of religion/' wherein St. 
Francis de Sales had watered " his lowly plants/' and 
cared for "'his dear doves/' as he was accustomed to call 
his first Daughters of the Visitation. 

Sharing in the Bishop's sentiments, the Countess has- 
tened to make the desired purchase, and set on foot the 
repairs necessary to make the monastery habitable. As 
both Mgr. Key and his noble coadjutrix were anxious to 
confide the good work to the Religious of St. Joseph, the 
former summoned from Pignerol, of which diocese he was 
the Administrator, several Sisters of the Congregation, 
whom, on their arrival, he received with truly paternal 
kindness, and lodged in his episcopal palace until their 
future home was ready for their reception. Schools for 
the poor were at once opened, and the visitation of the 
sick and other duties of the Institute undertaken. 

The religious of the Visitation, however, who, returning 
to Annecy, after the storm of the Revolution had spent its 
fury, had taken up their abode in larger and more com- 
modious quarters, were desirous of recovering the cradle of 
their Institute. To them it was a precious treasure, a 
relic whose acquisition they could not but ardently crave. 
" Here it was that we were born," said St. Jane Frances 
de Chantal; "it is our source, the origin of our life." 
The Bishop, to whom they addressed themselves, under- 
stood all this, and referred the delicate question to Rome. 



1 The Abb6 Rivaux seems here to have confounded the purchase of the Visitation 
Monastery (the second of the Order, I believe) with that of La Galerie, hallowed 
by the presence of St. Francis de Sales, St. Jane F. de Chantal, and her first heroic 
daughters. 

The Monastery, alone, was acquired by Mgr. Rey and Mme. de la Rochejac- 
quelin in 1833 ; La Galerie, which is within the enclosure, was, as we learn from 
our Sisters in Annecy, purchased only in 1853.— Translator. 



La Galerie Secured to the Sisters. 193 

A Jesuit Father, charged to examine into the affair, de- 
clared that the Sisters of St. Joseph, according to the 
design of their holy founder, and in accordance with the 
end laid down in their Constitutions, were carrying out in 
reality the first idea of St. Francis de Sales, when he 
founded in La Galerie his Order of Visitandines. That, 
consequently, the providential circumstances which had 
given the Saint's first House into the hands of the Sisters 
of St. Joseph, whose mission is the realization of his 
primitive plan, should be regarded as an expression of the 
Divine will and destination. 

His decision thus explained, impressed every one with 
the historical truths it recorded; it was confirmed, and the 
Sisters of St. Joseph have ever since retained possession of 
the treasure given them by Divine Providence. 

Thus was established and reaffirmed, in a solemn man- 
ner, that close and direct affiliation of the Congregation of 
St. Joseph with the mind and heart of the gentle Saint of 
Sales. The above decision, unanimously accepted, indi- 
cates that the little house in the Faubourg de la Perriere, 
in Annecy, called La Galerie, ought to be regarded as the 
cradle of the Institute of St. Joseph, also, since the blessed 
Daughters of the Visitation, by their first mode of life, 
brought it forth and inaugurated it, so to speak, before 
they entered on that to which their holy founder was led 
by a will other than his own. 

Dear to the hearts of St. Joseph's children is this close 
and blessed affinity with the angelic Order of the Visita- 
tion, for which they are bound by their Eule to entertain 
sincere affection and veneration. 

As soon of the Sisters had become settled at Annecy, 
the novitiate at Evian, on the Lake of Geneva — which had 
been founded October 15, 1822, by Sisters sent from Lyons 
by Mother St. John Fontbonne, at the urgent entreaty of 
the Abbe Picollet — was transferred thither, and the an- 



1 94 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

cient monastery became, thenceforth, the Mother House 
of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Annecy. That Congre- 
gation numbers at present three hundred and sixty-three 
religious, who have charge of thirty-seven establishments, 
including pensionnats, day-schools, Salles cVAsile, hos- 
► pitals, orphanages, and other works recommended by their 
Rule. This Congregation has, also, many dependencies in 
England and India, of which we shall now speak in detail. 

In 1844, the Rev. Father Superior of the Missionaries of 
St. Francis de Sales of Annecy, having begged the Holy 
Father, Gregory XVI., to confide to that Congregation some 
mission in infidel countries, the Holy See assigned it the 
missions of Vizagapatam, then included in the Vicariate- 
Apostolic of Madras ; and, in 1846, six missionaries en- 
tered on that field of arduous labor. 

In 1847, they received a powerful auxiliary in Rev. 
Father Neyrat, a priest whose ardent piety and zeal for the 
glory of God and the salvation of souls had caused him to 
be particularly remarked at Rome ; and, shortly after his 
arrival in India, he was consecrated Bishop of Olene in 
partibus, and appointed Vicar- Apostolic of the new Vica- 
riate of Vizagapatam. 

In the visitation of his flock, the zealous prelate learned 
the good dispositions of the natives, and the absolute spirit- 
ual destitution which reigned in many localities. Ignor- 
ance and the most revolting immorality held undisputed 
sway ; and he saw the imperative necessity of opening 
schools under the direction of religious, wherein the young, 
at least, might be rescued from the degrading influences 
that surrounded them. 

Having, for fourteen years, been Chaplain to the Sis- 
ters of St. Joseph at Evian, he was thoroughly conversant 
with the rules, spirit, and work of that Congregation, and 
j udged it admirably adapted to the wants of his flock. He, 



The Missions in India. 1 95 

accordingly, earnestly entreated the Superiors at Annecy 
to send him some religious, and his request was com- 
plied with. In 1849, four Sisters, accompanied by two 
missionaries, arrived at Bordeaux, whence they were to em- 
bark for India. 

They were received with open arms by Rev. Mother St. 
Joseph, Superior of the Congregation of Bordeaux, of 
whom it is mentioned, in her Life, that she had made a 
conditional vow to devote herself to the Indian missions. 
Unable to obtain permission for its fulfilment, she wished 
to become co-operatrix in the Sisters' labors, by providing 
them with the sacred vessels, church ornaments, and many 
other things calculated to be useful to them. Seeing the 
Sisters surprised at her generosity, she said : " You must 
not wonder at all I do for you, for some time ago I had a 
dream which made a vivid impression upon me ; and that 
dream is now realized. It seemed to me that St. Joseph 
and St. Francis de Sales appeared to me, and showed me a 
colony of their children setting out for a far distant mis- 
sion ; they bade me receive them most cordially and do 
them all the good I could." 

Towards the end of July the little band set sail, and ar- 
rived in February, 1849, at Yanaon, the inhabitants of which 
place constrained the Sisters to remain there instead of 
going to Vizagapatam, where they were anxiously expected. 
A second appeal was responded to by Annecy and Cham- 
bery ; and, in 1852, Mother St. John Boissat, Superior 
General of the latter community, inflamed with apostolic 
zeal, resigned her charge, and, accompanied by six relig- 
ious, embarked at Marseilles for Vizagapatam. After ten 
years of devoted labor, during which she bore the title 
and fulfilled the duties of Superior General of the Sisters 
of St. Joseph in India, she was called to her eternal rest, 
on the 6th of February, 1862. In the Notice on the Mis- 
sions of Vizagapatam, published at Annecy in 1866, we 



196 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

read : " A true type of the valiant woman, Mother St. John 
Boissat was above the weakness of discouragement. In the 
midst of difficulties of every kind which she had to en- 
counter, she placed all her confidence in her whom she 
used tenderly to call, ' My sweet Mother in Heaven' and 
then went on calmly and fearlessly, compassing her end 
with incredible prudence of action. This was the se- 
cret of her success. She who, in life, was held in the 
* highest esteem by persons of every class, native and for- 
eign, is now regarded with a species of veneration, and her 
name and assistance are often invoked by the distressed. 
It would seem that Divine Providence could not have 
chosen a religious more capable of founding the educational 
establishments of the Mission." There are, at present, ten 
Houses 1 and seventy-eight Sisters of the Congregation in 
the Vicariate ; but the natives are so anxious to have their 
women elevated from their condition of abjection and ig- 
norance, so full of admiration for what the Sisters have 
already effected, that they are continually urging the 
Superiors to send them more religious. 

While exercising, in conformity with their Eule, all the 
corporal and spiritual works of mercy, the Sisters are 
obliged to adapt themselves to the peculiar social circum- 
stances of the strange country in which they reside. 
Hence their schools have to be multiplied, not, indeed, as 
among us, on account of the number of pupils, but be- 
cause of the strict limitations of caste. It is well known 
that were Indians of one caste to hold communication 
with those of another, they would immediately lose caste — 
the most serious calamity that can befall a Hindoo. On 
this account, the Sisters must maintain schools for each, 



1 The Convents of Kamptee, Tubbulpore, and Nagpore depend on St. Jean-de- 
Maurienne ; Vizagapatam (the Novitiate and principal House having supervision of 
all the others), Vizianagram, Cuttack, Cocanoda, Yanaon, Sooradha, and Granapuram 
on Annecy. The total number of pupils is 1212 ; of orphans, about 100. 



The Missions in India. igj 

which adds, not a little, to their difficulties. Many inter- 
esting details of these institutions might be given, did not 
the limits of this work prevent ; but from the Eeport of 
the Government Inspector of the school of the Sisters of 
St. Joseph at Vizianagram, south of Calcutta, we extract 
the following : " This school is unique of its kind, and 
is one of the most useful and best managed of all the insti- 
tutions of the Maha-rajah of V. It is pleasant to inspect 
a school where the instructresses seem to have so com-* 
pletely gained the confidence of their pupils, and where 
order and discipline are so admirably preserved." 

This school was given iu charge of the Sisters by the 
native pagan Governor, and there are in it more than a 
hundred pupils, all high-caste pagan Brahmins. Their 
families, no doubt, seek but the refining influence of 
the education imparted by the Sisters, but who shall tell 
the moral effect, who number the conversions brought 
about by the pra}ws and life and works of those instruc- 
tresses ? Only when the women of India become chris- 
tianized, and when the sweet influence of Mary, the Vir- 
gin Mother of God, begins to bear fruit, may we hope 
for great and permanent extension of the Gospel in that 
land. 

The fact that the women, or rather girls of India mar- 
ry at a ridiculously early age, * and that under no circum- 
stances is a widow allowed to engage in a second marriage, 
exposes numbers of them to terrible dangers. On this ac- 
count, asylums or refuges have been opened for their es- 
pecial benefit, which are also under the charge of the 
Sisters. 

Dispensaries for the gratuitous distribution of medicines, 
etc., have been established ; foundling asylums and orphan- 
ages, also, wherein the poor infants of both sexes, ruthlessly 

1 Often at the age of five or six years. 



iq8 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonue. 

abandoned by their parents, are gathered. When grown 
up, these children are married, and thus villages of 
Christian families are formed. 

In view of such blessed works wrought amidst that pagan 
people, not only by the Sisters of St. Joseph but by other 
religioas, may we not hope for abundant fruit, especially 
when we consider that army of holy innocents, to whom, 
by those apostolic laborers and the associates of the Holy 
Childhood, have been opened, through the precious waters 
of Baptism, an entrance to eternal life, and who, our 
faith assures, interest themselves in favor of their be- 
nighted compatriots ? 

* * * * 

Up to 1864, England, so dear to every true child of the 
Church for its Catholic memories and traditions, pos- 
sessed no house of the Congregation ; but, in that year, 
St. Joseph began to assert his rightful claim to a share in 
" Our Lady's Dowry," and brought about, in a providential 
manner, the establishment on her soil of the only commu- 
nity in England which, so far as we can ascertain, bears this 
name of Joseph, name so sweet on Mary's lips, so dear to 
Mary's heart. The foundation is due to the zeal and en- 
lightened patriotism of Captain Dewell, a Wiltshire gentle- 
man of family and fortune, who, having been sent with 
his regiment to India, became convinced of the truth 
of the Catholic faith under the following circumstances. 

Being in the habit of taking his Catholic soldiers to 
Mass, he was profoundly impressed with the solemnity of 
the Adorable Mysteries, and was led to inquire farther in- 
to a religion which he had previously understood to be 
but a tissue of superstition and idolatry. 1 The reward 
of his fidelity to grace was the gift of faith, never denied 



1 In Terra Incognita Count Murphy assigns this as the cause of his conversion. 
Translator. 



The Novitiate for England. 1 99 

to the earnest inquirer ; and, on the 2d of July, 1858, 
he made his abjuration, and was received into the Catholic 
Church in the Eternal City. 

Eeturning to India, he remained some time with his 
regiment ; but, moved by a lively sentiment of gratitude 
to God for the inestimable favor he had received, and 
desiring to make his fellow-countrymen sharers therein, he 
determined to devote part of his fortune to establishing in 
England the Missionary Fathers of St. Francis de Sales 
and the Sisters of St. Joseph, the beneficent results of whose 
labors he had seen fully proved in India. Negotiations 
were opened with the Superiors of those Communities at 
Annecy, and it was agreed that some of the Fathers and 
Sisters on the Indian mission should be recalled for the new 
foundation. Mr. Dewell, having sold his commission at a 
great sacrifice, sailed for England in company with Eev. 
Father Larive, his director, to make the final arrange- 
ments for the projected convents ; and on Saturday, the 
3d of August, 1864, three Sisters under Eev. Mother 
Athanasia, late of India, arrived at Devizes in Wiltshire 
and opened their first house under the invocation of St. 
Joseph. 

God, who is never to be outdone in generosity, granted 
to Capt. Dewell himself the priceless grace of the apostolic 
vocation, and, a short time later, he entered the Society 
of Jesus. 

The novitiate for England was opened at Devizes, but it 
was soon found that it did not afford sufficient opportu- 
nities for the general work of the Congregation, nor were 
the revenues or surroundings what were needed for a cen- 
tral house. It was, accordingly, decided, in 1873, to trans- 
fer the novitiate to Newport in Monmouthshire. There 
are now four houses in England, viz., Newport, Devizes, 
Westbury-on-Trym and Malmesbury, in all which places 
the Sisters have charge of Government schools, besides 



200 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

private boarding and day-schools ; at Westbury, they have 
also an orphan-asylum. Besides their school duties, the Sis- 
ters are much engaged in the instruction and preparation of 
converts, and in the visitation of the poor and sick. They 
have been asked for in many other places in England, but, 
owing to want of subjects, the petitions have, with regret, 
to be refused. Great, indeed, is the harvest, and new fields 
are daily thrown open to the Church and her religious in 
that land consecrated by the blood of martyrs ; but the 
laborers are few. "Would that the Lord of the harvest 
would send laborers into His harvest by multiplying voca- 
tions to the apostolate of religious education, of which He 

is Himself the Model, the Co-worker and the Reward ! 

* * * * 

While endeavoring to make our readers even slightly 
familiar with the affiliations of the Congregations of Cham- 
bery and Annecy, we find we have gone far beyond the 
date of the early colonies sent from Lyons, and that, to 
return to our subject, we must give a backward sweep to 
the hand of time, now that we desire to speak of Corsica. 

Having failed in his project of opening a house in Rome, 
Cardinal Eesch, in 1824, decided to send the Sisters to 
Ajaccio in Corsica, his native city. As might be supposed, 
the Sisters previously named for Rome were assigned to 
the new foundation, with the exception of Mother St. 
John, who, as we have seen, was restored to Savoy. On 
the 17th of September six religious set out for Corsica, and 
Sister St. Regis, one of the number, appointed at first to 
attend the pharmacy, was destined by Cod to be the chief 
Superior, the soul of that important work ; and, in the 
words of Father Crozet, her biographer, " to cover the 
whole of Corsica with monuments of her zeal and charity. " 

After experiencing its full share of those trials and 
sorrows which must attend every Christian work, since on 
the cross alone can such work be securely based, the little 



The Foundations in Corsica. 201 

colony was, in 1830, visited by the Abbe Barret, Missionary 
of the Chartreux and Chaplain of the Mother House in 
Lyons, a man of extraordinary enlightenment and wholly 
devoted to the duties of his charge. 

There were at that time only two houses in Ajaccio in 
charge of the Sisters, the House of Schools, and the 
Foundling Asylum. Assembling the Sisters in Chap- 
ter, the Abbe Barret proceeded to hold an election. The 
scrutiny revealed that Sister St. Eegis was chosen Superior 
of the Schools, and Sister St. Calixtus, her sister by blood 
as well as by vocation, Superior of the Asylum. Botli 
were confirmed by the Visitor ; and the former, whom 
the fires of tribulation had well proved, was named Pro- 
vincial or chief Superior of the Houses of Corsica, which 
office she discharged for seventeen years, up to the time of 
her death in 1847. " Never was a soul more firmly 
grounded in faith and confidence in God," says Father 
Crozet ; " never w T as one more filled with a desire of virtue, 
more ardent in its practice, more pure in intention, more 
just in action, or more constantly faithful and devoted to 
the religious life. Her admirable intelligence, her benefi- 
cent charity, have filled Corsica with good works, and 
marvellously developed the Congregation of which she was 
Superior." It at present numbers about two hundred re- 
ligious, who direct fifteen important establishments, the 
chief of which are those of Ajaccio, Bastia, Corte, Calvi, 
Bonifacio, and Sartina, all founded by Mother St. Eegis. 

She was succeeded by Mother St. Calixtus, who, follow- 
ing in her sister's footsteps, fostered the true religious 
spirit of the community, and preserved the beautiful cus- 
toms and simple traditions by which the colony of Corsica 
has become renowned as one of the brightest glories, one 
of the purest gems in the crown of the Institute. 

Father Barret was succeeded as Visitor by Fathers 
Valois and Crozet, to whose indefatigable zeal and un- 



202 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne. 

wearied vigilance is mainly to be attributed tbe perfection 

of the Corsican community. The latter, in particular, 

devoted thirty years of his life to the work. 

* * * * 

Catholic Vendee could not but desire to have the daugh- 
ters of that great Saint, whose simple and patriarchal life 
was the prototype of their own. That grand race, that 
people of giants, as Napoleon called them, that " nation of 
martyrs," to use the more appropriate term of Eohrbacher, 
had made no alliance with vanity, luxury, frivolity, and 
modern vices. 

We cannot, then, wonder that their hearts and sym- 
pathies were given to the Daughters of St. Joseph. 

The Countess de la Eochejacquelin was the instrument 
in the hands of G-od for introducing and establishing them 
on that soil, sanctified and watered by the blood of her an- 
cestors, whom faith and heroism have gloriously immortal- 
ized. Eagerly did Mother St. John respond to her invita- 
tion. Between her who asked and her who gave, there was 
perfect conformity of views and sentiments ; both had that 
intuition of the wants of the age which has led a great bish- 
op to say : ' ' If men will no longer save the world, we have 
still our women and children. Yes ; we may hope to revivify 
the world through religious who pray, and children who are 
brought up to be strong and valiant women." 

Blessed by God and protected by this noble Christian 
lady, the little colony of Sisters struck root deeply in the 
west of France, and spread throughout Vendee and Tou- 
raine, in Saint- Aubin, la Roche-de-Brand Huismes, Cur- 
zay, Monlevrier, la Gaubretiere and other places. Despite 
difficulties and obstacles, it continues bravely its work of 
educating, of forming true Vendeans, women who degener- 
ate not from the virtues of their Catholic forefathers. 

ei In our time more than ever before," said the Vener- 
able Mother Barat, " the hope of salvation rests with the 



Christian Education of Woman. 203 

weaker sex. The men of this generation are become 
women; women, then, transformed by faith, must become 
men." 

"When everything else is debased, woman, do you at 
least remain great," exclaimed Victor Hugo. And it is 
only by the power of her virtue, by the influence of her 
Christian principles, that woman can maintain her moral 
empire, can uphold her greatness and her dignity. 

"Virtue," says St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, "is femi- 
nine only in name, in all else it is virile." 

Blessed, then, forever blessed be those who labor to 
train up true Vendeans, true women of any nationality! 
In the midst of general debasement of character, amidst 
modern error and perversion of mental faculties, what 
more potent agent for good can there be, than the humble 
religious who labors quietly, incessantly, unostentatious- 
ly, to inspire woman, both by word and example, with 
a just sense of the truth, the grandeur, the sublimity, of 
Christian virtue? In this lies the salvation of society in 
general ; in this only can woman find her true dignity, — 
that which associates her name with the names of Jesus 
and Mary. 

If our modern atheists and materialists still show a cer- 
tain respect for their wives, their mothers or sisters, it is 
because, all unconsciously to themselves, they are under 
the domination of ideas which Christianity has imparted 
to civilization. 

" Family life, dignity, purity of morals, reciprocal 
rights and duties within the home circle, respect for hu- 
man life, charity towards the weak and suffering, honesty 
in business, reasonable equality, rights of property, free- 
dom from tyranny, honored labor, universal justice, — all 
these things," says Mgr. Dupanloup, " may apparently 
flourish of themselves. But such is riot the case; so lit- 
tle are they the effect of human means, that at least one- 



204 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

half of the human race is absolutely deprived of them. 
Look abroad over the world ! " And after forcibly depict- 
ing the state of Oriental paganism, he continues: " char- 
ity! Gospel ! Church of Jesus Christ! Falling on our 
knees, we humbly kiss your hands, which have drawn us 
from the depth of that terrestrial hell! Divine Gospel ! 
sun which has purified so many pestilential marshes, which 
has brought forth so many and such precious blossoms on our 
earth, we do not adequately bless and glorify you among 
ourselves, nor, let me add, do we strive as we should to 
make you known and loved by those outside of lis," 

But the Congregation of St. Joseph, not content with 
applying itself to the diffusion of this blessed knowledge 
among the nations of Europe, has, as we have seen, gladly 
accepted the invitation of the sons of St. Francis de Sales 
to aid in extending it on the far distant shores of Asia. 
Nay, even benighted Africa, that land once hallowed by 
the footsteps of the Earthly Trinity, is, in our day, 
blessed with the ministrations of the children of St. Joseph. 

Nor have their labors been confined to the Old World 
alone. By a particular providence of God, the glorious 
name of St. Vincent, so closely linked with that of the 
Founder of the Congregation, is inseparably connected 
with the entrance of his children into the New World. In 
1834, Et. Kev. Joseph Eosati, Bishop of St. Louis, that 
worthy son of the grand Apostle of Charity, being on a 
visit to France to obtain co-laborers in his vast missionary 
field, stopped at the Mother House of the Sisters of St. 
Joseph of Lyons, and earnestly entreated Mother St. John 
to send to America a colony of her devoted daughters. 

What such an invitation meant of trial, difficulty, and 
privation, fifty years ago, we, under present circumstances, 
cannot conceive; but self-sacrifice and apostolic zeal have 
ever been the characteristics of the religious of France, 
and Mother St. John, eagerly accepting the new field thus 



The Sisters are Asked for America. 205 

opened to her daughters, began immediately the prepara- 
tions necessary to assure its success. 

Unwilling to impose on any of her children an exile so 
complete, a sacrifice so heroic, and a mission so full of 
peril, the Superior contented herself with making an 
appeal to their zeal and good- will, recommending them to 
weigh the matter well, consult their director, and be led 
only by the Divine inspiration; that thus, like the Apostles, 
they might be endued with strength from on high, with- 
out which one is powerless, especially on such missions as 
that proposed. She implored God to be with her daugh- 
ters, that His powerful and fatherly hand might guide 
them safe over the vast ocean to the boundless prairies of 
the West. 

At the close of her appeal, many of the Sisters offered 
themselves; but what a trial to her heart to behold, fore- 
most among them, Sister Febronia and Sister Delphine, 
her two beloved nieces! It seemed as though, like the 
Father of the faithful, she was called to immolate her own 
child. Mother St. John was at that time very old, and 
much weakened by infirmities. She had counted on her 
nieces to be the consolation and support of her declining 
years. She had even hoped to be able to resign the heavy 
burden of authority, and retire to the privacy of a little 
mission where one of them was Superior, there to close the 
door on earthly affairs and say with St. Gregory Nazian- 
zen: " I love this cherished solitude, which is the place of 
my repose: I shall exchange it only for the Church of the 
first-born who have inscribed their names in Heaven, under 
the portico of the eternal palace." 

In view of their mutual affliction, the aunt and her 
nieces faltered for a moment; but, accustomed to listen 
to the voice of grace alone, they soon made it quell the 
risings of nature. Worthy of each other, they generously 
ascended together the mount of sacrifice. Great was the 



206 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

emotion and edification of the whole community at the 
sight ; and when, in touching allusion to the scene, the 
novices, some days previous to the Sisters' departure, 
represented the sacrifice of Abraham, the Mother and her 
spiritual family could not restrain their 'tears. 

The little band of missionaries comprised Sisters Fe- 
bronia and Delphine Fontbonne ; Sister Febronia Cha- 
pellon ; Sister St. Protais ; Sister Marguerite (called 
thenceforward Sister Felicite, after the Countess de la 
Rochejacquelin, who wished one of the Sisters to bear her 
name); and Sister Philomene. 

Sister Febronia Fontbonne was appointed Superior by 
Eev. Father Cholleton, Mother St. John's delicacy and 
fear of natural influence restraining her from taking any 
part in the choice. After her appointment, however, she 
signed the letter of obedience for the new Superior, and 
prepared her for her office by wise advice and instruction. 

As the Bishop of St. Louis had begged for priests, also, 
for his diocese, Eev. Father Fontbonne, brother of the two 
Sisters mentioned above, with two seminarians, joined the 
little colony, of which he was appointed director and spir- 
itual father. Thus was accomplished the prediction made 
at his birth that he would one day become a missionary. 
But what a grief it must have been to the heart of Mother 
St. John to see herself deprived, at one blow, of all those 
children to whom, from the hour of their birth, she had 
been so intimately bound! But God so willed it: it was 
for His glory and the salvation of souls. Seeking in the 
Divine will her happiness, the Sisters of America tell us 
she seemed not only resigned but even joyous, with a joy 
not of earth, while, with affectionate solicitude, she made 
all the necessary preparations for their departure. 

At last the eve of the day of sacrifice arrived. The 
community assembled in the refectory to bid their last 
adieux to the little band of missionaries, whom they could 



Farewell of the Missionaries. 207 

expect to meet again only in eternity. Only they who 
have experienced the strength and sweetness of the bonds 
that unite Sisters of the same community, can understand 
the sorrow of such a parting. Casting themselves at the 
feet of their Sisters, the six missionaries implored their 
pardon for all that in the past might have been dis- 
edifying, and begged the prayers and blessing of all. 
Emotion choked their utterance; sobs burst forth from 
the whole community, and tears supplied the place of 
w r ords. But their venerable Mother, silencing her own 
grief, and, like the Mother of the Machabees, rising above 
nature, tried to console her children, encouraged the mis- 
sionaries, and invited her whole spiritual family to adore 
and bless the holy will of God. 

What a ravishing spectacle ! More blessed than St. 
Jane Frances, this holy religious, after consecrating her- 
self to God, has been privileged, also, to devote to His ser- 
vice her whole family, and when, to further His glory, she is 
called to sacrifice them anew to Him, it is she who is brave 
enough to dry the tears and console the sorrows of those 
around her. With the author of the Imitation well may 
we exclaim : ' ' Whosoever knoweth not how to suffer all 
and sacrifice everything to the will of the Beloved, knows 
not what it is to love ! " 



CHAPTER IV. 

Departure of the Missionaries. — Reception by the Bishop of St. 
Louis. — Establishment at Cahokia. — Trials and difficulties. — In- 
undation of the Mississippi. — Novitiate at Carondclet. — The 
Congregation of St. Josejm in St. Louis ; its Provinces. 




HE morning of January 4, 1836, having arrived, 
the brave and zealous band of Sisters bade adieu 
to their religious home, and began to descend 
the Hill of the Chartreux : then, at a little distance, at 
the last turn which afforded them a view of their dear 
Mother House, "we stood," writes one of the Sisters, "to 
take a last look at our cherished convent-home, to engrave, 
as it were, its every feature in the depths of our hearts." 

Anxious to consecrate themselves and their future to 
Our Lady of Fourviere, and to beg her blessing on their 
work, they ascended the sacred height and entered the 
sanctuary of Mary. There they found their venerable 
Superior prostrate before the altar, imploring the Virgin 
Mother to take under her powerful protection the chil- 
dren she was sending to a foreign land, and to be to them 
on their voyage the true Star of the Sea. 

At the altar of Our Lady of Fourviere, Eev. Father 
Fontbonne offered up the Adorable Sacrifice, in union 
with which Mother St. John and her children made that 
personal oblation which God required of them. Their de- 
votions ended, they withdrew to the house of the Sisters at- 
tached to the Dispensary of the Eue Tupin, where they 
were to breakfast. 

Mother Josephine Cessier, foreseeing the anguish the 



Departure of the Missionaries. 209 

final parting would inflict on the heart of the Mother 
General, begged her to grant a few moments' interview 
to a priest who wished to see her. Taking advantage of 
this temporary absence, she urged the Sisters to set out 
immediately to where they were to take the diligence for 
Havre. Then Mother Josephine, presenting herself to the 
Superior alone, gave her to understand that the hour of 
separation had gone by ; and Mother St. John, appreciat- 
ing the tender delicacy of her filial affection, poured out 
her sorrow on the heart of this beloved child, who, mean- 
while, consoled her by speaking of all the good that would 
be wrought, of all the souls that would be saved by that lit- 
tle band of missionaries. From that time, Mother St. John's 
visits to Fourviere became more frequent, as if from the 
spot where they had last prayed together, she could more 
effectually bless her absent children. 

The latter were, meanwhile, detained at Havre for 
eleven days, the vessel in which they were to sail not being 
in readiness. During that time they lodged at the house 
of Mine. Dodard, a pious and wealthy lady, who had de- 
voted her fortune to the receiving and harboring of priests 
and religious destined for the foreign missions. The 
Countess de la Kochejacquelin, whose name has occurred 
so often in these pages and so much oftener in the angelic 
records associated with the works of the Sisters of St. 
Joseph, had taken especial interest in the American Mis- 
sion, and had carried her zeal and charity so far as to sac- 
rifice her personal jewels to defray the expenses of the 
voyage, and provide articles necessary for the undertaking. 
Borne thus on the wings of faith and charity, the Sisters, 
trusting in the protection of the Blessed Virgin and her 
Spouse, set sail from Havre, January 17, 1836. 

The voyage was long and perilous, and all the party suf- 
fered much from sea-sickness. After forty-nine days' sail- 
ing, they came in sight of New Orleans, only to encounter, 



210 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

almost in the harbor itself, a violent tempest, which threat- 
ened them with shipwreck and death. Encouraged by 
Eev. Father Fontbonne, the Sisters remained calm and 
tranquil amid every danger ; and by their angelic modesty 
as well as by the charity exercised in favor of their fellow- 
passengers, they won the esteem and respect of all on 
board. 

What was the happiness of the Sisters when, on land- 
ing, they were met by the good Bishop of St. Louis, who, 
with Father Timon, afterwards Bishop of Buffalo, had 
travelled for eight days, to meet with a welcome and a 
blessing, in the very harbor itself, the new family which 
Providence had sent him ! The Ursulines of New Orleans 
received with cordial sisterly affection the wearied vo} T a- 
gers, who, after some days' rest, were able to proceed on 
their journey. 

Accompanied by the Bishop and Father Timon, they as- 
cended the Mississippi, and, after eleven days, arrived at 
St. Louis on the 25th of March, 1836, where they were 
hospitably received by the Sisters of Charity. How sooth- 
ing to the lonely, and, we may well believe, somewhat 
home-sick strangers, must have been the welcome given 
them in a foreign land by the Daughters of St. Angela and 
St. Vincent ! Never has it been forgotten, and to this 
day the thought of those who sheltered their first Mothers 
is dear to the American Sisters of St. Joseph. 

Father Douterligne, pastor of Cahokia, a village three 
miles from St. Louis, composed in great part of Canadians, 
was anxious to put his children in care of the Sisters. For 
two years this heroic priest had eaten only corn-bread, and 
had often gone without food, to be able to found this es- 
tablishment, which would provide assistants for his work. 
Touched by such zeal, Bishop Rosati decided that Mother 
Febronia, Sister Febronia Chapellon, and Sister St. Protais 
should go to Cahokia, and that Sisters Delphene, Felicite, 



Establishment at Laliokia. 211 

and Philomene should remain in St. Louis to learn English. 
The Bishop would himself conduct the Sisters to Cahokia, 
where their first visit was to the church to adore the Most 
Blessed Sacrament. The inhabitants, whose dialect of 
Canadian French the Sisters could understand much better 
than English, welcomed them with the greatest joy ; and 
there was a pleasant rivalry as to who should be most 
attentive, or who first provide for their pressing wants. 

One wealthy lady caused a pretty little chapel to be 
erected beside their house, and this the Sisters adorned 
the best they could with the ornaments they had brought 
from France. The schools were opened at once, and so 
many children, both boarders and day-pupils, entered, 
that it soon became necessary to enlarge the establish- 
ment. 

Dear to the hearts of those brave Canadians was that 
little French convent ! The sound of its chapel-bell 
floating out over the waters of the Mississippi, or reverber- 
ating in the depths of the surrounding primeval forests, 
had for them an indescribable charm. The Sisters the} 7- 
venerated as Saints, as charitable Mothers who had left 
their homes in France, their loved Mere-patrie, to tend 
jfcjieir sick and poor, to teach and care for their children. 

One day in winter Mother Delphine came from St. 
Louis to visit her sister, Mother Febronia. On her return, 
the latter accompanied her some distance through the 
forest, but when she attempted to retrace her steps, she 
became confused and lost her way. When night came on, 
freezing and bitter cold, and brought no tidings of the 
Superior, the grief and dread of the Sisters became ex- 
treme, nor were the people less excited. 

Einging the alarm-bell to assemble the villagers, one of 
the principal men thus addressed them: "My friends, 
our good French Sisters are in great affliction. Their 
Superior is lost in the great forest of La Pointe: at any 



212 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne. 

cost, we must find her. Provide yourselves with torches 
that you may be able to see your way, and take your guns, 
so as to defend yourselves if you encounter any danger. 
Separate into parties of ten or twelve, and scour the woods 
in every direction. From time to time cry aloud : 'Mother 
of Cahokia, don't be afraid. Your children are seeking 
you/" These arrangements were carried out to the let- 
ter, and the searchers penetrated into the deepest recesses 
of the forest. 

Mother Febronia, who, in the meantime, had followed 
a hundred little by-paths in her endeavor to reach the 
convent, had, at last, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, 
taken refuge in the hollow of an old tree ; hope failed 
with her strength, and recommending herself to God, she 
resigned herself to death. Fortunately her feeble moans 
were heard by one of the bands ; they ran to the spot, and 
found her in a ravine. Joyously they sounded the horn 
to give the signal of success, and the men quickly gathered 
from all quarters. Constructing a litter of branches they 
would fain have borne the Mother thereon, but one of the 
old men, remarking that she was almost frozen with cold, 
said it was necessary, at any cost, to make her walk, thus 
to restore circulation to her stiffened limbs, and throw off 
the torpor even then settling on her. The rescuers yielded 
to his reasons, adding : " We will support her, and, if 
necessary, even carry her in our arms." 

Thus, in the midst of a triumphal cortege, as it were, 
she was restored to her spiritual family, whose gratitude 
to their kind neighbors was second only to the thanksgiv- 
ings they rendered to Almighty God. 

Informed by letter of all that had occurred, Mother St. 
John blessed God for the affectionate consideration shown 
her children by the people among whom they labored, and 
rendered fervent thanks to Our Lady of Fourviere for 
what she considered a most signal mark of her protection. 



Inundation of the Mississippi. 2 1 3 

But a time of severer trial soon came to the missionaries. 
In 1844, a terrible inundation of the Mississippi submerged 
the entire village, and the waters rose to the second story of 
the houses. All the residents that could, fled to places of safe- 
ty, taking, where time afforded the opportunity, their live- 
stock and most valuable effects. The Sisters were in great 
peril, but Mother Oelestine, then Superior in St. Louis, and 
Rev. Father Fontbonne, having chartered a boat, hastened 
to their assistance. The Sisters were rescued from the 
porch on the second story, whence they stepped into the 
boat. The waters retired but slowly, and fevers broke out 
which made great havoc among the inhabitants. Eetn ril- 
ing to the field of their labors, the Sisters suffered much 
from sickness, and they were, a second and a third time, 
driven away by the flood. 

Mother Febronia had contracted a disease which caused 
her excruciating suffering ; and Sister Febronia Chapellon, 
her health shattered by hardship and unfavorable climate, 
was reduced to a state of great exhaustion. The physi- 
cians advised their return to France, and they were both 
recalled by their Superiors, after having, for ten years, 
labored indefatigably in the field allotted to them. 

Shortly after the establishment of the Cahokia mission, 
Bishop Rosati decided to open a convent at Carondelet, 
about six miles from St. Louis, under the direction of 
Mother Delphine. Sisters Felicite, Philomene and St. 
Protais were assigned to the new foundation, but the lat- 
ter was prevented from leaving Cahokia by an attack of 
fever. 

In 1837, the little community had the inexpressible con- 
solation of welcoming two additional Sisters from Lyons, 
Sister Celestine, afterwards Superior of Carondelet, and 
Sister St. John, the foundress, some years later, of the 
Congregation of Philadelphia. These two religious, who, 
in 1836, had been sent to Saint-Etienne to prepare them- 



214 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

selves for the instruction of deaf-mutes on the American 
mission, had been long and anxiously expected. The 
Bishop was informed of their departure from Brest on the 
17th of April, 1837 ; but as months rolled by bringing no 
tidings of the travellers, both he and the Sisters gave 
them up as lost. The vessel, meanwhile, had put in at the 
West Indies ; and it was only in September that the two 
Sisters, having reached St. Louis by way of New Orleans, 
presented themselves to the Bishop. He, however, would 
not, at first, believe they were the Sisters of whose coming 
he had despaired ; and to assure himself of their identity, 
he bade them converse before him in the sign-language. 
Whether or not they had their letter of obedience the An- 
nals do not say ; if they had, probably the Bishop feared 
its authenticity. This reception, serious though it was, 
had its ludicrous aspect, and the tired and, it would seem, 
hungry travellers, were somewhat at a loss for a subject on 
which to converse. But there was no alternative. Prove 
themselves to be the deaf-mute teachers they must, so Sis- 
ter Celestine, turning to Sister St. John, asked in signs, 
" What are you thinking of, Sister ?" to which the latter, 
in all the simplicity of truth, replied : "I am thinking of 
the bread we ate in France." So unexpected and evident- 
ly so candid an acknowledgment overset Sister Celestine's 
gravity, and she could not restrain a laugh. The Bishop 
insisted on knowing what had been said, and whether or 
not hunger was a sufficient proof of their being the ex- 
pected travellers, it would appear they had to undergo no 
further examination. Going to a closet in the room, the 
Bishop took therefrom a piece of brown bread, which 
he gave to Sister St. John with the injunction to eat it. 

This pleasant little episode put an end to all embarrass- 
ment, and at the close of the interview the prelate gave 
them his letter of obedience to the Superior at Carondelet. 
We can better imagine than describe what must have been 



Novitiate at Carondelet. 2 i 5 

the feelings of Mother Delphine and her Sisters, when just as 
they had assembled for recreation on the 4th of September, 
the two French Sisters, unannounced and unexpected, ap- 
peared in their midst. Had they been angels from Heaven 
they could not have been more rapturously welcomed. 
The Te Deum and Magnificat, chanted from the depths of 
happy hearts, were all that could be heard for some time in 
that poor, lowly cabin, into which had swept, as it 
were, a breath of their native air, a glimpse of their na- 
tive land ; for the dear travellers brought to the exiles for 
Christ's sake, news from home and friends, messages from 
the cherished Sisters whom absence made but the dearer, 
tender counsel and blessing from the Mother, whose 
heart, under the twofold influence of nature and grace, was 
full of love for her expatriated children. The virtues and 
zeal of the newcomers, the encouragement and assistance, 
spiritual and temporal, which they brought from Lyons, 
infused new life and vigor into the little convent, if such 
indeed it might be called. 

Carondelet, although far superior to Cahokia in climate 
and situation, was, at the time of the Sisters' arrival, a 
mere collection of log-cabins, inhabited by Creoles or poor 
wood-mongers, who earned a scanty livelihood by selling 
at St. Louis the timber cut from the surrounding forests. 
After clearing away the trees, they used to make little 
gardens or plantations ; it was all hard work, misery, and 
poverty, with but little of earthly comfort to be looked 
for. 

For their convent and school the Sisters had two small 
log-cabins, given up to them by Be v. Father Saulnier, 
first pastor of Carondelet, who lived himself in a log- 
cabin contiguous to one somewhat larger, which served as 
a church. The Sisters' dwelling had but one room, 
which was known by different appellations at various hours 
of the day ; at one time the kitchen or refectory, it was 



216 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

anon elevated to the dignity of parlor or oratory, only 
later in the day to be rechristened the dormitory. What- 
ever else was wanting, there was always a superabundance 
of fresh air ; and it was no unusual thing for the Sisters, on 
awaking in the morning, to find themselves provided by 
Nature with extra coverlets of snow, which had fallen 
through the many sky-lights in the roof, or entered through 
openings left by the logs' refusal to enter into partner- 
ship. From St. Louis they had brought some coverlets 
and sheets, and two sacks, which, when filled with straw, 
served as beds for the community. 

By the exercise of that mathematical ingenuity which 
convent-life so often has the power to develop, what 
would, in ordinary circumstances, have sufficed for two, 
was made to do duty for six ; while the Eule requiring 
that each Sister should have a separate cell, was, for the 
time being, dispensed with, in view of the fact that were 
one to keep it, the rest would be homeless. Joy and 
light-heartedness are ever the companions of privations 
undergone for God, and happier days than those spent 
by the first Sisters of Carondelet, have hardly been the 
portion of any of their Sisters. The shifts they were called 
on to make, by appealing to their keen sense of the 
ridiculous, converted into a source of recreation what to 
more gloomy temperaments might have seemed cause for 
tears; and we cannot wonder if, being obliged to take 
turns, during meals, to hold an umbrella over those who 
were making the best of what, more than once, had been 
procured by begging, the Sisters should rejoice at the 
fact that of w T ater, at least, there was "lull and plen- 
ty." 

Under such circumstances did the Sisters spend the early 

days-of the Carondelet mission, amidst a population not only 
poor and rude, but destitute of any taste for either religion 
or education. But rich in their poverty — the pearl with- 



The Novitiate at Carondelet. 2 1 7 

out price — and hopeful for the future, they struggled on. 

Key. Father Fontbonne, who had been stationed at the 
Cathedral in St. Louis, visited his sister and her spiritual 
family from time to time, and, finding them in want of 
the necessaries of life, sold for their benefit some church 
ornaments which he had brought from France. 

Owing to the bad state of the roads, which, in winter, 
were impassable to foot-travellers, Bishop Eosati, to his 
great regret, was prevented from visiting the poor Sisters 
as often as he could have wished, to console them amid 
their privations, for his poverty was such he could not 
afford a horse. But his expressions of sympathy and the 
little attentions he was able to show, proved to the Sisters 
that he was not only their Superior but their Father. One 
instance of his delicate consideration goes far to prove 
that he bore not in vain the title of " Son of St. Vincent. " 

Noticing that the habit of the Sisters of St. Joseph, as 
worn in France, did not afford sufficient protection against 
the inclemency of our northern winters, he had cloaks 
made for them, like those worn by the Sisters of Charity. 
Carrying them himself to Carondelet, he presented them to 
the Sisters, saying : " See what I have for you. These 
will be very comfortable, especially when you have to go to 
the Church, which is so very cold." Then he made the 
Sisters try them on in his presence, that he might be sure 
they answered his purpose. 

Eev. Father Saulnier, the missionary pastor of Caron- 
delet, a fervent and zealous priest, often denied himself 
bread to give it to the Sisters ; and when, some time later, 
by the exercise of the most rigid economy, he had saved 
enough to purchase a cow, it was the Community of St. 
Joseph which profited most by the produce of his not very 
extensive dairy. 

Deeply grateful for the kindnesses received, the Sisters 
were not, meanwhile, regardless of the Apostle's injunction 



2i8 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

to labor assiduously ; and to the onerous duties of their 
profession, they added the employment of seamstresses. 
Application for work was made to stores and industrial 
establishments, and for some time during the Mexican 
War they were engaged on shot-bags at a cent apiece, 
for a firm on the Mississippi River. As may well be con- 
ceived, this did not bring them much income ; but He 
who multiplied the loaves in the desert in favor of men 
who hungered for His heavenly doctrine, failed not to 
support those who had abandoned home and friends and 
native land, to plant in Western wilds the knowledge of 
His love and His law. Work which is to be a continuation 
of His Divine apostolate must ever bear the marks that 
characterized His own, poverty, humility and privation. 
" They who sow in tears shall reap in joy," and ere long 
God crowned the Sisters' faith and patience by giving the 
first fruits of the coming harvest. 

In the month of October, 1837, Miss Anna Eliza Dillon, 
the first American daughter of St. Joseph, entered the 
novitiate at Carondelet, which, to one reared like her in 
the lap of luxury, must have seemed a reproduction of the 
stable of Bethlehem. The only daughter of a prominent 
merchant of St. Louis, she, having lost her mother, had 
been educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart. Feel- 
ing herself called by God to join the Daughters of St. 
Joseph, she asked her father's permission to do so ; but of 
Carondelet he would not hear, because of the Sisters' ex- 
treme poverty. That poverty, however, was the ointment 
whose exquisite odor drew that precious soul to her Di- 
vine Spouse, and casting aside and forever the world and 
its glittering allurements, she, at the age of eighteen, en- 
tered the novitiate. As she was naturally of delicate 
constitution, the Sisters were very solicitous about her 
health ; but her fervent piety, spirit of abnegation, and 
natural energy of character, made her forget everything to 



The First A merican Sister of St. Joseph. 2 J 9 

labor earnestly for the advancement of God's greater 
glory. To the poor, struggling Sisterhood, she was, verit- 
ably, a God-send. The inability of most of the Sisters to 
teach English had been, previously, an obstacle to the 
general reception of pupils, but as Miss Dillon was thor- 
oughly conversant with both English and French, she was 
able, by conversation and instruction, to perfect the Sisters in 
the English tongue. On the 3d of January, 1838, she was 
admitted to the religious habit by Et. Eev. Bishop Rosati, 
who gave her the name of Sister Frances Joseph, name 
admirably suited to one who had been drawn to the chil- 
dren of Joseph mainly by her love for that poverty which 
had such charms for the Seraph of Assisi. 

Endowed with rare natural attractions, her well-cultured 
mind, affable manners, sweet and gentle disposition, ren- 
dered her virtue amiable even in the eyes of externs; and 
the skill and tact she displayed in teaching inspired her 
Superiors with bright hopes of her future usefulness. But, 
fair and fragile as the emblem of her Blessed Father, this 
Lily of St. Joseph was, at an early hour, transplanted by 
the Heavenly Gardener to more congenial soil, for, to the 
great grief of her community, she died in 1842. The will 
which she made in favor of the religious family to which 
she belonged was not recognized by her father ; but the 
dearer and richer legacy of her virtues and example is the 
inalienable right of the American Sisterhood of St. Joseph. 
As the early spring-flowers have a charm and sweetness all 
their own, so this young Sister, the first to bloom, the 
first to fade, holds a place in the annals and traditions of 
the American Congregation which none else can ever fill. 

Meanwhile, the number of boarders and day-pupils at 
Carondelet began to increase, so that the Sisters were 
obliged to enlarge their house : this they were enabled to 
do by succors brought from France by Sisters Oelestine 
and St. John, 



220 Life of Rev. Mother St. Jo Jin Fontbonne. 

Influenced by the grace of God, and encouraged, no 
doubt, by Miss Dillon's example, several young ladies had 
entered on their novitiate with the zeal of the truly fervent; 
and, as a life of poverty is, necessarily, a life of sacrifice, 
their progress to perfection was steady and unfaltering. 
Under the power of grace, privation became joy ; and 
self-forgetfulness, mortification, and abnegation had for 
them no terrors. As the grain cast into the ground, 
when it dies brings forth abundant harvest, so the com- 
munity of Carondelet, planted in the most absolute want, 
began " to sink root downwards and bear fruit upwards." 

In 1839, Mother Delphine, at the expiration of her first 
term of office, was succeeded by Mother Celestine Pomeril, 
of whom we shall have occasion to speak later on. 

In 1840, Bishop Rosati, before his departure for the 
Fourth Provincial Council of Baltimore, took leave of his 
flock, who little dreamed the farewell was to be final. At 
the conclusion of the Council, he set out for Rome for the 
transaction of important business connected with his see. 
Gregory XVI., who then occupied the Chair of Peter, en- 
trusted him with a delicate mission to the Republic of 
Hayti, in which he was fully successful, though at the 
cost of his life ; for through the exposure attendant on it, 
he contracted a disease of the lungs of which he died at 
Rome, September 25, 1843, deeply mourned by his flock, 
but by none more than by the Sisters of St. Joseph. 

Under the zealous supervision and fatherly care of his 
successor, Bishop Kenrick, the Sisters began to work in 
new and hitherto untried fields. In 1844, they opened in 
St. Louis a school for colored children under Mother St. 
John Fournier, who, in 1846, was transferred thence to the 
male orphan asylum of that city. Several parish-schools 
were next put under the Sisters' direction, and as the 
community began to increase in proportion as it extended 
its sphere of usefulness, it became necessary to settle 



The Congregation in St. Louis. 221 

definitely certain matters relative to its government. 

Finding that the Sisters conld the better adapt them- 
selves to the rapidly increasing demands of this country, if 
freed from dependance on the Mother House of Lyons, it 
was decided, by the advice and direction of their Bishops, 
that the communities of St. Joseph in the United States 
should retain their diocesan character, as had been done by 
many of the French and Italian foundations, as before 
noted. But this separation, made under authority and by 
mutual agreement, was not detrimental to the affectionate 
and sisterly relations that had subsisted between them, and 
the communications which the various Mother Houses hold 
with one another have been a source of consolation to the 
Daughters of St. Joseph on both sides of the Atlantic. 

In 1836, the Sisters established at Oarondelet, on an el- 
evation commanding a magnificent view of the mighty 
Mississippi, an academy and day school for young ladies, 
which was incorporated in 1853. Under efficient manage- 
ment, it has become one of the best educational establish- 
ment, not only of the West, but of the Union. 

The Sisters of the St. Louis Congregation teach over one 
hundred parochial and select schools, extending over a 
wide range of territory, all of which are carried on under 
a uniform graded system of instruction, the outcome of 
varied experience of the educational wants of this country, 
and thoroughly enlightened views as to what constitutes a 
solid and Christian education. 

The work of instructing and evangelizing the Indians, 
which the Sisters began among the Sioux and Winneba- 
goes at Long Prairie in 1850, under the direction of the 
pioneer Bishop Cretin, has, up to the present, been contin- 
ued with unabated zeal, and they have schools at Baraga, 
Yuma, Keshina, and other places. 

So extended became, in a few years, the affiliations of the 
Mother House of Carondelet, that the Superiors, con- 



222 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

vinced of the benefits that would accrue from centraliza- 
tion, decided,, in 18G3, to organize it into a General Con- 
gregation of four Provinces, subject to the Mother House 
of St. Louis. ' The approbation of the Holy See was solic- 
ited, and fully and finally granted by Pius IX., in 1877. 

The Province of St. Louis comprises the dioceses of St. 
Louis, Chicago, Peoria, Alton, Marquette, Green Bay, 
Denver, Mobile, New Orleans, Kansas City and St. Joseph ; 
that of St. Paul, the diocese of St. Paul ; that of Tucson, 
Arizona, San Francisco and Los Angeles. From the table 
of statistics added to this work, it will be seen that the 
Congregation of St. Louis is in a most flourishing con- 
dition and contains more than one-third of the religious of 
St. Joseph in the United States. 



1 By the wish and advice of their respective Bishops, the communities of Philadel- 
phia, Wheeling, Buffalo, Erie, Brooklyn, and Toronto preserved their autonomy. 



CHAPTER V. 

Foundations at Philadelphia. — The Novitiate at McSherrystown. — 
Its removal later to Chestnut Hill. — Establishment of the Con- 
gregation of St. Joseph at Wheeling, Buffalo, Rochester, 
Brooklyn, and other Eastern cities. — Convents of St. Joseph in 
the South. — Foundations of Canada. 




jEAENING from his brother, the Archbishop of 
St. Louis, the good that had been effected by the 
Congregation of St. Joseph, Rt. Rev. Francis P. 
Kenrick, the glory of the American Church, then Bish- 
op of Philadelphia, and, later, Archbishop of Baltimore, 
asked for a colony of Sisters to take charge of St. John's 
Male Orphan Asylum, then on Chestnut St., contiguous 
to St. John's Church. Mother St. John Fournier was ap- 
pointed Superior ; and with two other Sisters she arrived 
in Philadelphia and took charge of the Asylum, May 6th, 
1847, just three years from that sadly memorable day on 
which had been inaugurated the " Native American " riots. 
During that unhappy period the Sisters of Charity, then 
in charge of the asylum, had been grossly insulted, and it 
had been found necessary to scatter the children to dif- 
ferent places of safety. 

And although, in 1847, the external ravages of the tem- 
pest had been repaired, the churches rebuilt, and Catho- 
lics, in general, accorded the rights and privileges of their 
fellow-citizens, the fire of religious hatred but smouldered 
in many breasts, ready, in individual cases, to flame forth 
at sight or sound suggestive of Catholicity. 

Wishing, therefore, to render the Sisters less conspicu- 
ous and thereby spare them the petty insults and persecu- 



224 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

tions of which they were sometimes the object, the Bishop 
decided that, on going abroad, they should add to the or- 
dinary habit of the Institute a black bonnet and cloak, 
afterwards superseded by a shawl, which addition to the 
costume is still retained by the Sisters in several of the 
Eastern dioceses, although the feeling which was the cause 
of its adoption has long since died away. The disguise 
was not, on the whole, an effective one, and when the Sis- 
ters appeared abroad they had many annoyances to endure, 
and were frequently saluted with epithets more ex- 
pressive than nattering, which in later years have become 
traditional matter for amusement. 

The Sisters had, in the meantime, been called to direct 
the schools attached to St. Patrick's Church, Pottsville ; 
St. Joseph's and St. Philip's, Philadelphia, the latter in a 
district from which the turbulent mobs of 1844 had been 
largely recruited. Nothing daunted by the terrible scenes 
through which he had passed, and from which he had barely 
escaped with his life, Eev. N. Cantwell, the heroic pastor of 
St. Philip's, hastened to re-open his parochial school ; but 
for some time it was found necessary to have gentlemen 
protect the children in going to and from the church. 
When, however, there was question of. the Sisters' assum- 
ing the charge, the Eev. Felix J. Barbelin, S. J., of dear 
and blessed memory, who, from the Sisters' coming to the 
diocese until his death, ever showed the greatest interest 
in them, advised them to trust more to the people's good 
will, dispense with the escort, and go calmly on their way, 
as if no interference was expected. 

The event proved that he was right; neither teachers nor 
children were from that time molested on such occasions ; 
prejudice began to be dissipated, and " the nuns " were suf- 
fered to undergo in peace " the horrors of conventual life," 
since it was clear they did not intend to force them upon 
others. 



The Novitiate at Mc Skerry stown. 225 

In 1850, Mother St. John Fournier was recalled to St. 
Louis, and sent thence to found missions in St. Paul, 
Minn. She was succeeded as Superior of the Philadelphia 
convents, first by Mother Delphine, and later by Mother 
Agnes Spencer. But in response to urgent and reiterated 
entreaties, and through the kind mediation of Rt. Rev. 
Bishop Neumann, Mother St. John was restored to 
Philadelphia, in May, 1853. 

As, owing to want of means, the community was unable 
to have a regular Mother House, applicants had up to this 
period been received at St. John's Orphan Asylum, which, 
for many reasons, was not suitable for a novitiate. 
Mother St. John's first endeavor on her return was to pro- 
vide a suitable place for the training of the young Sisters ; 
and, by the kind co-operation of the Bishop and Rev. Fr. 
Enders, S. J., the Academy of McSherrystown, lately va- 
cated by the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, was secured, and 
opened Maj^ 4, 1854, under the invocation of St. Joseph. 
Among the advantages which this convent afforded, one 
of the most precious was that of the community's being 
under the spiritual direction of the Sons of St. Ignatius. 
Not content with spiritual benefits only, the good Fathers 
aided the Sisters by every means in their power, even so 
far as to become their professors in those secular sciences 
and accomplishments necessary to their success as teachers. 

Graphic and amusing details of the early days of "dear 
McSherrystown," and the ever-to-be-remembered names of 
its kindly and truly Catholic residents, have been recorded 
for the benefit of succeeding generations of the commu- 
nity, but the trials and make-shifts of a new religious foun- 
dation is an "oft-told tale," with which we shall not now 
delay our readers. 

Religious vocation is a flower that has ever flourished in 
the congenial soil of the Conewago Valley, hallowed by the 
truly Catholic lives and traditions of the early settlers from 



226 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonnc. 

the German Fatherland; and many have been the daugh- 
ters of McSherrystown and surrounding places who have 
found in conventual life " that peace which the world can- 
not give " : not a few of them have embraced the humble 
and laborious life of the Sisters of St. Joseph. 

The field of labor opened to the Sisters continued, 
meanwhile, to grow more extensive ; and as McSher- 
rystown was too distant to admit of Mother St. John's 
readily visiting and supervising the Houses in Philadelphia, 
the Mother House and Novitiate were transferred to Chest- 
nut Hill, a suburb of that city, and one of the most beauti- 
ful locations in the State, on the 16th of August, 1858. 
On the 21st of the same month, the saintly Bishop Neu- 
mann offered up the Holy Sacrifice for the first time in 
the house that had been purchased, blessed it, and delivered 
a most touching and fatherly discourse to the assembled 
Sisters. 

Kt. Eev. Dr. Wood, Coadjutor of Bishop Neumann, ac- 
companied by many priests, visited the new establishment 
on the 24th of August, named it " Mount St. Joseph," and 
presented a large sum of money to help the Sisters to meet 
the debt they had incurred. Thus, on that day, did he 
inaugurate a series of benefactions and favors to St. Jos- 
eph's Sisterhood, continued throughout his long episcopate, 
even to that hour when the hand of death stilled his noble 
and magnanimous heart, and the silence of the grave fell 
on those lips whence had proceeded so many fatherly coun- 
sels, admonitions, and blessings. 

In the October of 1858, the Sisters opened their acad- 
emy, and the house — an ordinary dwelling — was found 
wholly inadequate to the requirements of the community. 
The Sisters were soon compelled to use the cellar as their 
refectory, from which they were wont to emerge, bearing 
evidence, on face and linen, that contiguity to a coal -bin 
does not greatly enhance one's personal appearance. Yet, 



The Convent at Chestnut Hill. 227 

unlike Emerson's lady, to whom the " sense of being per- 
fectly well-dressed imparted a peace and tranquillity relig- 
ion was powerless to bestow/' the Sisters' recreation was 
never merrier than on such occasions. 

It happened, however, that on a certain day, Rev. T. 
Kyle, in company with Rev. H. McLaughlin, visited the 
convent, and met the Sisters coming up from what he 
could never have imagined to be the dining-room ; and 
his warm, generous, Irish heart found more pathetic than 
amusing the sight of " the Spouses of our Lord coming 
like rabbits out of a burrow," as he himself expressed it. 
Sympathy with him was no barren feeling ; it bore the 
fruit of immediate action, and, carrying out Father 
McLaughlin's suggestion, from church to church, from 
parish to parish he went during the following three months, 
describing what he had seen ; appealing, not in vain, 
to Catholic generosity, and acting as collector himself until 
he obtained sufficient funds to erect an addition to the 
convent, in which the " Sisters could see, at least, what 
kind of food was before them." This, the first addition 
to the original building, was blessed by Bishop Wood on 
St. Joseph's Day, 1860. Several additions have since been 
made, and new buildings erected, but with none other 
shall be associated the thoughts of noble charity, of 
generous devotedness that are an integral part of iC Father 
Kyle's building; " and while a stone remains upon a stone, 
successive generations of St. Joseph's children will deem 
it a sacred duty to remember, before the throne of God, 
him who, they confidently hope, has already heard from 
the lips of his Judge and Redeemer: " Inasmuch as you 
did it unto these my least brethren, you did it unto Me." 

When, in 1862, war, with its attendant horrors, was deso- 
lating the land, Mother St. John, at the request of 
Surgeon-General Smith, sent Sisters to take charge of the 
Church Hospital of Harrisburg and that improvised at 



228 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

Camp Curtin, outside the city, where they remained in 
devoted attendance on the sick soldiers until their regi- 
ments were called to the front, and the camp broken up. 
Later on we find the Sisters of St. Joseph from Philadel- 
phia in charge of the floating hospitals which received 
the wounded from the battle-fields of Virginia. 

The cause of Catholic education had, meanwhile, made 
great progress, and schools began to multiply on every 
side, far more rapidly, indeed, than religious teachers 
could be provided. At the request of the lamented Arch- 
bishop Bayley, several houses were opened in the dioceses of 
Newark and Baltimore, which, by the wish of the eccle- 
siastical Superiors, still remain subject to St. Joseph's 
Convent, Chestnut Hill. 

The communities of Toronto, Brooklyn, and McSherry- 
town have been founded from the same diocese ; and peti- 
tions for Sisters from the West Indies, South America, 
and Australia have had to be regretfully refused for lack 
of religious to meet the demand. 

At the solicitation of the late Archbishop of Philadel- 
phia, the Sisters, in 1881, undertook the spiritual instruc- 
tion of the female Catholic deaf-mutes, for which no pro- 
vision had been previously made, and many of those afflicted 
ones have since learned that knowledge of God and His 
Church, which to them, otherwise, had been unattainable. 

It may not be amiss to make some brief mention here of 

the other diocesan foundations of the Institute in the United 

States, all of which, except those of Georgia and Florida, 

owe their origin either to the first Sisters sent from France 

by Mother St. John Fontbonne, or to Houses founded by 

them. 

* * * * 

The first House of the Congregation in the diocese of 
Wheeling was founded by Mother Celestine of St. Louis, in 
the April of 1853, at the request of Rt. Rev. Bishop 



Various Diocesan Foundations . 229 

Whelan. Six Sisters were appointed to the mission, of 
which Mother Agnes Spencer, recalled from Philadelphia 
for that purpose, was appointed Superior, Mother Celestine 
herself, however, remaining for six weeks, that, by her 
wise counsels and assistance, she might help the new 
community over its first difficulties, and establish it on a 
solid basis, that of most exact regularity. 

At present the Sisters have charge of the Hospital, Or- 
phan Asylum, and all the parochial schools of Wheeling 

and its vicinity. 

* * * * 

Rev. John Timon, Visitor of the Lazarist Congregation 
in the United States, was, as we have seen, one of the first 
to welcome and bless the little French colony of Sisters of 
St. Joseph when they landed in New Orleans, in 1836. 
Having, in 1847, been consecrated first Bishop of Buffalo, 
he, like another St. Vincent, set himself to provide comfort 
and consolation for every species of human woe and mis- 
ery. While seeking co-operators in his works of charity 
and beneficence, he was not unmindful of the children of 
St. Joseph, a Saint to whom he had special devotion, and 
whose praises, as Father Faber remarks in his work, 
" The Blessed Sacrament," Bishop Timon took such delight 
in hearing. 

In response to his invitation, a colony of Sisters was sent 
from St. Louis to Oanandaigua, a village most beautifully 
and picturesquely situated at the head of Lake Oanandai- 
gua, and then included in the Diocese of Buffalo. Arriv- 
ing there on the 8th of December, 1854, that day forever 
glorious in the annals of the Church ; that day on which, 
to use Bishop Timon's own expressions, " the Christian 
world crowned its Mother," they placed under the glorious 
invocation of Mary Immaculate the Academy for young ladies 
which they then opened. ''Besides teaching the youth," 
writes Mr. Deuther in his " Life of Bishop Timon," 



230 Life of Rev. Mother St. Joint Fonlbonne. 

" they undertook other works of mercy, such as providing 
a house for poor girls of good character, whose only al- 
ternative, previously, had been the poor-house or shame." 

In the same year, A. P. Le Oouteulx, Esq., a distin- 
guished benefactor of the Church in Buffalo, donated to 
the Bishop a lot which should be the site of an Institute 
for the Instruction of Deaf -Mutes. The funds necessary 
for such a building were not, however, obtainable ; but, in 
1856, the Bishop having purchased three small frame 
houses in the neighborhood, had them removed to the 
above-mentioned lot. 

Knowing that the Congregation of St. Joseph was, in 
several parts of France, engaged in teaching this class of 
the afflicted, he made application to St. Louis for the Sis- 
ters, and three who had studied the methods employed in 
the Institution of Caen, France, were, in 1857, sent to 
take charge of the projected school. But although the 
Bishop contributed, as far as he could, to the furnishing of 
the house, and sometimes donated to its support funds of 
which he was in need himself, the means of subsistence were 
very precarious, and the work made but slow progress ; in- 
deed, had it not been for the benevolence and indomitable 
zeal of the prelate, its continuation would have been aban- 
doned. In November, 1862, — the Bishop having, in the 
meantime, sent one of the Sisters to the Pennsylvania 
State Institute at Philadelphia, that she might become 
thoroughly conversant with the methods most in vogue in 
the United States, — the classes were reorganized in the 
new building, which he had caused to be erected. The no- 
vitiate was transferred from Canandaigua to Buffalo ; and, 
under the Superiorship of Mother M. Magdalen Weaver, — a 
most saintly religious, and one of Mother St. John Fonr- 
nier's first companions in Philadelphia, — the community 
and its works seemed, thenceforth, to be included in that 
promise which the lamented Archbishop Spalding has 



The Le Conteulx Institute. 231 

applied to Bishop Timon's undertakings : Et omnia qum- 
ciinque faciet, prosper dbuntur. 

In I860, the Sisters addressed a Memorial to the New 
York Legislature, praying that Le Couteulx Institute might 
be included among those to which the State annually made 
appropriations for the education of deaf-mutes ; and a bill 
to that effect was passed, April 28, 1875. From that 
day, the prosperity of the Institute was assured, and the 
Sisters have indefatigably labored to keep it in the fore- 
most rank among institutions of its kind. From the An- 
nual Eeport of 1885 we learn that its pupils of both sexes 
numbered one hundred and fifty-two, who, in addition to 
the ordinary branches of instruction, are taught various 
trades, so that, in after-life, they may be self-supporting. 
Most competent judges of different denominations, as well 
as the State and County Supervisors, have testified to the 
thorough and practical education there imparted; and as its 
pupils hail from all parts of the Union, the sphere of its use- 
fulness is widely extended. 

We have written somewhat at length of this Institute, 
not only because it is one of the largest in the United 
States under Catholic control, but also because, as has been 
beautifully remarked by a Catholic poetess, 1 its work is one 
" that finds its appropriate place under the patronage of 
St. Joseph, the silent Saint of the Church ; the greatest 
Samt the world has ever known, the Saint of whom no 
spoken word has ever been recorded." 

The Sisters have not, however, restricted their labors to 
one field : they have charge of St. Joseph's Boys' Orphan 
Asylum at West Seneca ; teach the classes and attend to 
the domestic affairs of the Catholic Protectory at the same 
place ; have the administration of St. Mary's Orphan Asy- 
lum at Dunkirk, and teach in fifteen of the parochial 
schools of Buffalo and its vicinity. 

1 Miss E. C. Donnelly. 



232 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

Among the sad results of tlie late Civil War, there was 
none that appealed more eloquently to sympathetic hearts 
than the number of children whom it left fatherless and 
often homeless. To the Catholic Church, whose Divine 
characteristic it is to " have the poor always with her/' the 
majority of those desolate children belonged, and she was 
not slow in asserting and exercising her maternal rights, 
gathering them into homes already open to them, or pro- 
viding such where none had previously existed. 

In the autumn of 1864, at the instance of Rev. J. M. 
Early, V. G., Bishop Timon sent three Sisters of St. Joseph 
from Buffalo, to open, in Eochester, an asylum for soldiers 1 
orphans. On the Feast of All-Saints they took possession 
of a small house on South Street, and immediately began 
their work, placing it under the patronage of Mary, the 
true Mother of orphans. Three years later, the number of 
children having increased to one hundred and thirty, the asy- 
lum was transferred to more commodious quarters : here 
new buildings have recently been erected, and the institu- 
tion can now accommodate three hundred boys. 

In the meantime, the vast diocese of Buffalo had been 
divided, the See of Rochester created, and on the 12th of 
July, 1868, Rt. Rev. Bernard McQuade, founder, and, for 
many years, President of Seton Hall College, New Jersey, 
was consecrated first Bishop of Rochester. 

This zealous prelate, whose name and fame as one of 
the ablest champions of Catholic education, have spread 
not only through our country but even to Europe, set him- 
self, at once, to that work which the Church deems second 
to none. Voice and pen he supplemented by most energet- 
ic action : and verbal protest against irreligious educa- 
tion he eloquently emphasized by sacrificing means, leisure, 
even necessary rest, to the building up of a school-system 
wherein religion should be mistress and science her hand- 
maid. 



The Congregation in Rochester. 233 

With this end in view he determined to make choice of 
some religious community of women, whom he could em- 
ploy as teachers in the parochial schools. After having 
examined the Rules and Constitutions of the Congregation 
of St. Joseph and consulted with the Superiors, he came 
to the conclusion that it would meet his requirements 
and carry out his views. A diocesan organization then be- 
came necessary ; the Sisters at Canandaigua and Rochester 
were freed from dependance on the Mother House of Buf- 
falo, and St. Mary's Asylum, Rochester, was chosen to be, 
temporarily, the Central House and Novitiate of the Con- 
gregation of St. Joseph of Rochester. 

On the 11th of November, 1870, St. Patrick's Girls' 
Orphan Asylum was placed under their care ; and on the 
Feast of the Assumption, 1871, the Sisters took possession 
of the handsome and spacious building which their Rt. 
Rev. Superior had purchased for them, and which he des- 
tined to be the Mother House and Novitiate for his Diocese. 
This convent received the beautiful and appropriate name 
of "Nazareth/"' in the hope that the Earthly Guardian of 
the Blessed Home of Nazareth would, in a special manner, 
protect the Sisters who bore his name, and the children to 
whose welfare they had devoted themselves. An academy 
and boarding-school were soon opened in an addition 
built for that purpose, in which, at present, there are more 
than one hundred pupils. 

The parochial schools attached to the Cathedral and 
Church of the Immaculate Conception were opened in 
September, 1871, under the charge of the Sisters of St. 
Joseph, and each succeeding year has widened their field 
of labor, as the different parishes have become able to 
make provision for the Christian instruction of their 
children. The Sisters attend to seventeen parochial 
schools, either German, French, or English, and have also 
opened on Lake Avenue, Rochester, a preparatory boarding 



234 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

and day-school for boys under twelve years of age, and an 
orphan asylum at Canandaigua. 

The Eochester Home of Industry was founded in 1873, 
to supplement the work of St. Mary's Asylum, by afford- 
ing boys of a suitable age every facility for acquiring a 
practical knowledge of farming, gardening, or useful trade. 

A similar institution for girls was opened a few months 
later ; and here, under the supervision of the Sisters, 
every branch of needlework is carried on, and employment 
afforded working-girls of good character temporarily in 
need of a home. 

Such, up to the present, have been the works confided 
to the Congregation of Eochester ; and if, to use the words 
of their Et. Eev. Bishop, " the success attending the work 
of years gone by, since the Sisters of St. Joseph began their 
educational labors in this diocese, be any guarantee for the 
future, then, surely, the years to come must produce won- 
derful fruit in the portion of the vineyard committed to 
their care." May God perfect the work He hath Himself 
begun ! and may his " name be held in everlasting remem- 
brance," who "has planted and watered" while imploring 

God " to give the increase." 

* * * * 

While the Congregation was thus permanently establish- 
ing itself in Western New York, another branch had taken 
root in the congenial soil of " The Isle of the Apostles," ' 
under the fostering care of Et. Eev. John Loughlin, 
first Bishop of Brooklyn. His request for a colony of 
Sisters, presented to Mother St. John of Philadelphia in 
January, 1856, could not be complied with until August 
of the same year, owing to the scarcity of Sisters. 

In the latter month, two Sisters, under the direction of 
Mother M. Austin, arrived in Brooklyn, where they were 

1 Insula Apostolorum, the name given to Long Island by the early Catholic explor- 
ers. 



Establishments cm Long Island. 235 

most cordially received by the Bishop ; and, under his 
kind patronage, they, on the 8th of September, opened 
St. Mary's xYcademy for Young Ladies. One year later, 
they took charge of their first parochial school, that at- 
tached to SS. Peter and Paul's Church, whose pastor, the 
venerable and zealous Father Malone, has ever since con- 
tinued a true and faithful friend to the community. A 
novitiate had, in the meantime, been opened at St. Mary's; 
and there were the Sisters wont to gather for several years, 
week after week, to listen to the conferences on the duties 
and privileges of their State, given by their zealous Bishop 
to the communhVy, in imitation of St. Francis de Sales. 
Like his blessed prototype, the prelate knew he could most 
effectually advance the Sisters' work among the children 
and the poor by thoroughly grounding them in the spirit 
of their Congregation, and by increasing and extending in 
them that knowledge of God and His truths which it is 
their primary duty to inculcate to others. 

Applicants began to seek admission to the community, 
and it was not long before St. Mary's w r as found to be 
wholly inadequate to its requirements. Acting on the 
suggestion of Eev. Father O'Bierne, pastor of the beauti- 
ful village of Flushing, within easy access of Brooklyn, 
the Sisters purchased in that place a large frame building, 
know as St. Thomas's Hall, which had, up to that time, 
been used as a Seminary under the presidency of Rev. Dr. 
Hawkes, an Episcopalian clergyman. 

Thither the novitiate and academy were transferred; 
a boarding-school was opened, new and extensive buildings 
erected, and to-day, St. Joseph's Academy, Flushing, holds 
its well-earned place in the foremost rank of the education- 
al establishments of the State of New York. The chapel, 
Romanesque in style, is a perfect gem of art ; and, on be- 
holding its altars, ornaments, and statuary, all in such per- 
fect keeping, one feels rise, involuntarily, to his lips the 



236 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

words of the Koyal Psalmist : They " have loved, Lord, 
the beauty of Thy House ; and the place where Thy glory 
dwelleth." 1 

In 1868, St. John's Male Orphan Asylum, one of the 
greatest of Brooklyn's Catholic charities, in which boys, 
sometimes to the number of eight hundred, find a home, 
was given into the care of the Sisters of St. Joseph; St. 
Malachy's Home for orphans and destitute children has 
also since been intrusted to them. Their principal employ- 
ment, however, has been the teaching of parochial schools, 
an all-important work which is rapidly assuming its rightful 
place, the foremost in every scheme of Christian education. 

To the self-sacrificing zeal of the Congregation of Flush- 
ing four other foundations are due, viz., those of Ebens- 
burg, Pa. ; Rutland, Vermont; Boston, and Springfield, 

Mass. 

* * * * 

The Novitiate of Ebensburg, opened in 1869, perpetuates, 
under the name of Mount Gallitzin, the memory of that 
princely priest 2 whose feet so often pressed, in his weary 
missionary wanderings, the soil whereon it stands. This 
community has three affiliations in the diocese of Colum- 
bus, Ohio. 

In response to the appeal of Most Eev. Archbishop 
Williams and Rev. Thos. Maginnis, of Boston, six Sisters 
were sent to take charge of St. Thomas's Schools, Jamaica 
Plains. The community rapidly increased in numbers ; 
other places in the diocese sought for their services, and 
schools were opened in South Boston, Amesbury, Stoughton, 
and Cambridge. To the latter place, in 1884, was removed 
the novitiate previously established at Jamaica Plains. 



1 Psalm xxvi. 8. 

2 Rev. Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, a Russian prince, who was the pioneer 
priest of western Pennsylvania, 



Various Foundations of the Congregation. 237 

Mount St. Joseph's Convent, East Rutland, the noviti- 
ate of the diocese of Burlington, was founded in 1876, 
under the patronage of Rt. Rev. L. De Goesbriand and 
Rev. T. Boylan. The Sisters have charge of one boarding- 
school and the parochial schools of East Rutland, Brattle- 
boro, and East Bennington. 

The establishment of the Congregation in Springfield is 
due to the energy and kind persistence of Rt. Rev. Bishop 
O'Reilly, who, having had previous knowledge of the Sis- 
ters' work in several small missions of his diocese, applied 
to Flushing for Sisters to teach the Cathedral schools, and, 
in the convent attached thereto, to open a diocesan noviti- 
ate. The Sisters were accordingly sent to Springfield in 
September, 1880. Four parochial schools, also, are under 
the Sisters' direction, and their educational labors have 
been attended with extraordinary success. 

The first convent of St. Joseph's Sisterhood in the dio- 
cese of Erie, Pa., was opened at Corsica, in 1862, by 
Mother Agnes Spencer and two companions ; another at 
Frenchtown was founded shortly afterwards, and in both 
places the Sisters were put in charge of the parochial 
schools. At the request of Rt. Rev. Bishop Young, a 
hospital and orphan asylum were established in Erie ; 
another hospital has been opened at Meadville, and a home 
for the aged in Erie, in addition to which the Sisters di- 
rect four academies and eight parochial schools. 

* * * * 

It has been noted heretofore that the Philadelphia novi- 
tiate formerly located at McSherrystown was transferred 
to Chestnut Hill in 1858. 

An academy and boarding-school continued, never- 
theless, to be maintained at McSherrystown ; and when, 
in 1868, the see of Harrisburg was created, its late lam- 
ented Bishop, Rt. Rev. J. F. Shanahan, appointed it as 
the diocesan novitiate. Mother Magdalen Weaver, re- 



238 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

called by Mother St. John from Buffalo, was named Supe- 
rior, which office she held until her blessed death, August 
21, 1876. Besides the academy above mentioned, the 
Sisters maintain a home for orphans at the novitiate and 
at Lebanon ; they also teach the parochial schools of 
McSherrystown, Hanover, Oxford, Rock Hill, and Lob 
anon. 

To the ordinary works of the Congregation they have 
added the instruction of the blind, for whose benefit a 
school has been opened under the superintendence of one 
of the religious, a graduate and former teacher of the 
Philadelphia Institute for the Blind. A number of the 
novices also are being continually trained to carry on this 
charitable work, hitherto so much neglected. 

The course includes reading and writing with pin-type, 
New York point and Braille system, and the other or- 
namental and industrial branches usually taught in such 
institutions ; and the apparatus and school appliances are 
all that modern progress has been able to devise for facil 
itating such instruction. 

* * * * 

In 1866, shortly after the close of the late Civil War, Et. 
Eev. Augustin Yerot, D. D., Yicar Apostolic of Florida, 
seeing the sadly demoralized condition of the but newly 
emancipated slaves, the majority of whom were in profound 
ignorance of the truths of religion, undertook with great 
zeal the work of their evangelization. Finding that he had 
neither priests nor religious sufficiently numerous to cope 
with the difficulty, he resolved to seek the necessary aid in 
his native France, where apostolic zeal seems to be a con- 
stituent element of the Christian life. A native himself of 
Le Puy, the birth-place of the Sisters of St. Joseph, he 
was well acquainted with the scope and organization of the 
Congregation, and judged it to be admirably adapted to 
the pressing wants of his Yicariate. To the Superiors of 



Convents of St. Joseph in the South. 239 

Le Puy ' lie accordingly applied ; his request was made 
known to the community, and sixty of the religious of- 
fered themselves for the mission, only eight of whom, how- 
ever, were accepted. On the 6th of August, 1866, the Sis- 
ters embarked at Havre, but it was not until the 2d of Sep- 
tember that they reached Pilatka, Florida. Thence they 
immediately proceeded to St. Augustine, where they were 
charitably and hospitably received by the Sisters of Mercy. 

In January, 1867, they opened schools for the colored 
children, in St. Augustine, and on the 22d of April, the 
same work was undertaken in Savannah, Ga. 

Those of our readers who know the sad state of affairs 
that prevailed in the South at that epoch will readily un- 
derstand that the poor missionaries had much to endure 
from poverty and trials of various kinds, but they were 
not disheartened, knowing that " comfort and luxury and 
home and ease are not for those who wish to follow Christ." 

At St. Augustine a regular novitiate was opened in 
1880, under the auspices of Rt. Eev. Bishop Moore, who 
succeeded Bishop Verot after the holy death of the latter 

1 A few details here concerning the reorganization of the Sisters of St. Joseph at 
Le Puy, after the Revolution, will, we think, prove interesting. 

Owing to the Sisters' labors among the lower classes, the Asylum of Montferrand, 
the cradle of the Institute, was, for a few months after the outbreak of the Rev- 
olution, saved from the fate of the surrounding Houses. But its turn came ; and it 
was only with great difficulty that the relations and friends of the religious were en- 
abled to save the greater number from the scaffold. Some were imprisoned, and 
three, as we have already seen, gave their lives for their vocation- 

When Religion began again to raise her head on the blood-soaked soil of France, 
the remaining Sisters presented a petition to the Prefect of Haute Loire for the res- 
toration of their former home, but it was rejected. It was only on the 14th of Jan- 
uary, 1815, that tbey were again put in possession of that convent endeared to 
them by the lives and deaths of generations of holy religious. The Act of Restora- 
tion is a very interesting document, but on account of its length, we cannot repro- 
duce it here. It sets forth that the Sisters have been invited to return and have re- 
turned to the convent, save some, who on account of their age and infirmities, were 
not able to bear the excessive cold of that day. Also that the Mayor has installed 
the Sisters and given them the keys of the buildings, which are in a very ruinous 
condition ; that the chapel has been desecrated and partly destroyed, the Sisters' 
choir torn down, the altar, windows and wood-work broken, etc., etc. 

But sad as such a sight must have been to the reunited religious, and painful 



240 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontboune. 

in 1876. The Sisters have now charge of two boarding 
and six select schools, eight schools under the control of the 
State, and six for colored children. ' Under the guidance 
of the Sisters, several quite prosperous associations have 
been formed among the Catholic colored females, such as 
St. Monica's Society for the care of the sick, St. Frances' 
for married women, and St. Cecilia's for young girls. 

When, in 1877, the yellow fever began its ravages in Fer- 
nandina and other places of Florida, the Sisters, who were 
then engaged in the exercises of their annual retreat, 
waited not for its close, but leaving God in prayer to find 
Him in the service of His suffering children, they has- 
tened to the scene of death, and immediately began their 
loving ministrations to the fever-stricken patients. Seven 
of the Sisters themselves were attacked by the dread mal- 
ady, but only two were privileged to render up their lives 

as pure holocausts on the altar of Charity. 

* * * * 

As has been already noted, the first foundation of the 
Sisters of St. Joseph in the diocese of Savannah was made 
April 23, 1867, when four Sisters were sent from St. 
Augustine to take charge of the school for colored children. 
Some time later, the Bishop put the male orphanage 
also under their care ; this establishment was afterwards 
transferred by Rt. Rev. Bishop Gross to Washington, Ga. , 

as must have been the memories it evoked, the joy of finding themselves once more 
within the convent- walls made them almost forget the sufferings they had still 
to endure. With a zeal all the more ardent because of long repression, they set 
themselves to re-create, develop and reorganize their former undertakings, and 
success crowned their efforts. Sister St. Augustin Robert, the last of those heroic 
confessors, died in Le Puy in 1839. 

Like the Sisters of St. Joseph in others parts of France, the Congregation of Le 
Puy found a centralized government better adapted to the exigencies of the times : 
and in 1842 a generalate was definitely established. Seventy-five establishments are 
under the obedience of its Mother House, and its seven hundred and forty-five mem- 
bers are employed in seventy-one schools, eight pharmacies and four asylums. 
—Translator. 

1 The schools for colored children are at St. Augustine, Jacksonville, Mandarin, 
Fernandina, Pilatka and Moccasin Branch. 



The Foundations of Canada. 241 

where the Sisters opened under his patronage a boarding- 
school and academy for young ladies, establishing, at the 
same time, a novitiate and separate diocesan government. 
In addition to the works above mentioned, the Sisters 
teach two parochial schools for white children, and one for 
the colored ; and have also opened a boarding-school for 

little boys at Sharon, Ga. 

* * * * 

The foundations of Canada — of which, although anteri- 
or to most of those above alluded to, we have, for obvious 
reasons, deferred speaking until now — were begun by Mgr. 
de Charbonnel, Bishop of Toronto, in 1851. 

This zealous prelate, whose father had aided Eev. Mother 
St. John Fontbonne in her efforts to restore the Congrega- 
tion of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Lyons, 1 shared in the 
esteem which all his family felt for that venerable religious. 

Returning from a visit to Eome, Bishop de Charbonnel, 
in 1851, stopped at Philadelphia to visit Mother Delphine 
and her brother, Father Fontbonne, and being highly 
pleased with what he there saw of the Congregation, en- 
treated Rt. Rev. Dr. Kenrick to send Mother Delphine, 
with some of her religious, to make a foundation in his 
episcopal city, and his request was granted. 

On receiving her obedience from the Bishop, this good 
religious cheerfully severed the new ties she had contracted, 
and with three companions, set out for her field of labor. 
The Sisters arrived in Toronto on the 7th of October, 1851, 
and were at once installed in the Orphan Asylum on 
Kelson Street, in which, after a short time, a novitiate 
was opened. 

The parochial schools of the city were placed under the 
direction of the community, and, notwithstanding the oppo- 



1 The record from which these details are drawn is, on this point, somewhat 
obscure, and our rendering may not be absolutely correct.— Translator. 



242 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

sition raised by bigotry, then rampant in Toronto, and the 
wretched accommodations to which the poverty of the 
Catholic population restricted them, they were numerously 
attended. The fruits of the Sisters' arduous labors ere 
long became apparent, and won grateful recognition. 
" The orphans were well provided for ; the children pre- 
pared for the worthy reception of the sacraments without 
detriment to their progress in secular learning ; sinners 
were reclaimed ; prisoners visited and instructed ; the sick 
and dying consoled ; " in a word, the works of charity en- 
trusted to the Sisters in Toronto gave them opportunity to 
fulfil literally the words of their Eule, which urges them to 
consecrate themselves to the service of their neighbor by 
exercising all the works of mercy, both spiritual and cor- 
poral. 

In 1857, the House of Providence — a building erected 
by the charitable public under the auspices of Bishop de 
Charbonnel for the reception of the aged, the infirm, and 
the destitute of every religious denomination — was opened 
under the direction of the Sisters of St. Joseph ; several 
additions have since been made to this institution, which 
has been most appropriately. named, not only because, like 
the Adorable Providence of God, it is open to every human 
creature in distress, but because on this Divine Providence 
it relies for its support from day to day, there being no 
fixed revenue or regular income for its maintenance. At 
present it harbors 260 orphans and 240 adults, either blind, 
aged, crippled, or incurable. A branch of this institution 
has been opened at Sunnyside, Brockton, where the 
orphans are kept during their infancy ; the inmates are 
about fifty in number. 

The "St. Nicholas's Institute/' a home for working boys 
founded in a central part of the city by Most Eev. Abp. 
Lynch, and by him placed in charge of the Sisters, has, 
under the blessing of God, been able to afford the comforts 



The Foundations of Canada. 243 

and safeguards of a home to many children at a most 
critical period in life. 

" Notre Dame des Anges/\ an industrial school and 
boarding-house for young girls pursuing different occupa- 
tions, although not a charitable institution according to 
the general acceptance of the word, has, nevertheless, for 
years done much good in a field, the importance of which 
is being, lately, more fully recognized. 

The small house erected for a novitiate having been 
found wholly unfit for its purpose, the Sisters, unprovided 
themselves with the necessary resources, turned with con- 
fidence to Him for whose sake they had stripped themselves 
of all. A novena of Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacra- 
ment was offered for their intention; and the Prisoner of 
Love was not slow in responding to the j:)rayer of those 
who visited Him so assiduously. In February, 1862, the 
Honorable Capt. Elmsley donated to the community two 
acres of the Clover Hill estate, one of the most eligible sites 
in the city, and a convent and academy were built thereon, 
of which the Sisters took possession August 15, 1863. 
The boarding-school there opened has succeeded beyond 
their most sanguine expectations, and with the various ad- 
ditions which circumstances have since rendered necessary, 
" St. Joseph's Convent and Novitiate " has become one of 
the most imposing structures in Toronto. Fifteen of the 
separate ' schools are taught by the Sisters, and in the dio- 
cese of Peterborough — the convents of which are still sub- 
ject to the Mother House of Toronto — they have four 
schools — one for Indians — an orphan asylum and a hospital. 

To Toronto, moreover, the dioceses of Hamilton and 
London have been indebted for their first colonies of the 
Sisters of St. Joseph. In the former, the Sisters direct ten 



1 Canada, more just in this matter than the United States, allows the Catholics a 
pro rata share in the school funds, out of which the teachers are paid, and the 
schools maintained. 



244 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

separate schools, a training-school for teachers, the or- 
phan asylum of Hamilton, a hospital and two Houses of 
Providence. In London, from the Mother House called 
Mt. Hope, the Sisters go daily to teach the parochial schools 
of the city; and at Goderich, St. Thomas, and Sandwich, 
they have both select and free schools. At the novitiate 
there is an asylum for orphans and a home for the aged 
poor. 

Thus have we endeavored, by the above compilation of 
details from varied and authentic sources, to give an out- 
line of the foundations and undertakings of the Congrega- 
tion of St. Joseph in North America during the half a cen- 
tury that has elapsed since Mother St. John first sent to 
our shores her heroic children. Crude and defective as it 
necessarily is, it will not, we are confident, be devoid of 
interest to those who have succeeded them or reaped the 
fruit of their labors. Glorious, indeed, has been that 
fruit springing from "the root of wisdom that never fail- 
eth. " Well may the Daughters of St. Joseph, to whom 
they have left the blessed heritage of saintly lessons and 
example, exclaim in the words of Wisdom: " Oh, how 
beautiful is the chaste generation with glory: for the mem- 
ory thereof is immortal: because it is known both with 
God, and with men. When it is present, they imitate it: 
and they desire it when it hath withdrawn itself, and it 
trin mpheth crowned for ever, winning the reward of un- 
defined conflicts." 




CHAPTER VI. 

Mother St. John's affectionate solicitude for her missionary chil- 
dren. — Extracts from her correspondence. — The Countess de la 
Rochejacquelin's letters to the American Sisters. — Statistical 
account of the Congregation of St. Joseph in both Hemispheres. 

N our desire to give even a brief sketch of the la- 
bors of the Sisters in North America, we have 
gone far beyond the term of Mother St. John's 
life ; it is, then, necessary to resume the thread of our 
narrative at the foot of the Hill of Fourviere, where the 
Mother and children held their last earthly reunion. 
Pilgrimages to that sacred shrine had ever been the conso- 
lation of her heart, but thenceforth they became more 
frequent, more fervent ; and at the feet of Mary she united 
herself, heart and mind, to the Sisters' painful struggles 
and arduous toil. Prayers for the absent were ever on her 
lips or in her heart ; and iC it is those prayers/' write the 
Sisters, " which like a gentle and beneficent dew have 
fallen on the seed of our humble labors, rendering them 
fruitful for the glory of God ; while her example, her vir- 
tues, and her blessed instructions have been as a pillar of fire 
going before us to lead us to the perfection of our Eule 
and the religious life." 

But her maternal sympathy sought vent not in prayer 
alone ; the news of the Sisters' extreme destitution excited 
her to constant efforts in their behalf. Glad to become a 
beggar for the poor of Jesus Christ, she solicited material 
aid of every available kind. Money, clothing, articles of 
devotion, and church ornaments were gratefully accepted 



246 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbomie. 

and transmitted with all speed to the settlements on the 
Mississippi. 

Little articles of personal adornment, pretty dress mate- 
rials, ribbons, etc., she, with provident forethought, sent 
for the children ; with the injunction that the Sisters 
should teach the pupils themselves to convert them into 
wearing apparel, and thus train them to habits of neatness 
and industry. For this true daughter of St. Joseph was a 
great lover of manual labor, and regarded instruction in 
the feminine art of the needle as one of the most indispen- 
sable elements of womanly culture, one of the most effec- 
tive means of remedying the indolence to which many 
children are naturally prone, and which, alas, for but too 
many, is the first step towards destruction. In this, as in 
other duties of a woman's life, she would have the example 
of Mary held up as a spur and an encouragement. " Oh, 
how sweet it is, how useful," exclaims Eenelon, " to rep- 
resent to ourselves the august Queen of Heaven, attending, 
like other Jewish women, to the sewing of the family, 
mending the garments of St. Joseph or weaving that 
seamless robe of her Divine Son, for the possession of which 
the soldiers strove on Calvary. Sometimes we see her 
drawing the water for household necessities, again preparing 
the frugal repast, at which she seats herself with her holy 
Spouse and her Divine Son." 

But " spectacle admirable above all others ! n cries out 
Bossuet ; " Jesus, the Son of G-od, consubstantial with the 
Eternal Father, follows the trade of an artisan, and, after 
St. Joseph's death, labors with His own Divine hands for 
the support of His widowed Mother ! " 

It was this spirit of sublime reverence for labor which 
led Mother St. John to call it, in the words of the ancient 
monastic Constitutions, " the holy labor of the hands," and 
to desire that her daughters and those under their care 
should be deserving of the commendation of the Holy Ghost: 



Mother St. Joint! s Correspondence. 247 

" She hatli sought wool and flax, and hath wrought by the 
counsel of her hands. " 

Her spirit of profound .faith taught her to regard as 
doubly blessed, work that contributed to the adornment 
of God's holy altars ; and she took delight in placing with- 
in the sacred walls evidences of loving remembrance, mute 
yet eloquent witnesses to a love that fed on sacrifices for the 
Beloved. The first Stations of the Cross used by the 
Sisters in Cahokia were her gift, to which she added from 
time to time flowers, candelabra, everything she could beg 
or procure to adorn the tabernacle of her God in the wild- 
erness. One of her gifts was a clock for the chapel ; ac- 
knowledging which the Sisters say : " Oh, how suitable a 
gift ! Whenever it strikes it will remind us of the voice of 
our beloved Rev. Mother; we shall imagine that she is calling 
us and recommending regularity ; and, as in the good old 
times, we shall hasten to put in practice her wise and ma- 
ternal advice." Under present circumstances those gifts 
may seem little and unworthy of record, but in the time of 
which we write they were priceless to the receivers, not 
only as evidences of maternal love and thoughtfulness, 
but as treasures otherwise wholly unprocurable. Little 
acts of kindness have a delicacy all their own ; and it 
has been well and truly said that no one attends better 
to little things than the really great in mind and soul. In 
this they resemble God, who concerns Himself with the 
infinitely great and the infinitely small : Ima summis. 

It is a matter of the greatest regret that, of the corre- 
spondence maintained between Mother St. John and the 
founders of the American mission, only two letters have 
reached us. On the 6th of January, 1843, she writes : 
" Mr dear Daughters and beloved nieces : 

" For three or four months I have been expecting Mgr. 
Eosati, Bishop of St. Louis, to come to Lyons : hence I 
have deferred writing, but I can wait no longer ; my heart 



248 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

is hungry to write to yon. It seems an age since I re- 
ceived news of my beloved children, and I know not how 
you are. My affection for you makes me impatient, for 
distance does not separate us ; far from diminishing our 
love, it but renders it more tender and active. Everything 
here, moreover, reminds me of my absent ones, and I seem 
to meet you again in all those places in which I have so 
often seen you." 

"Friends," says St. John Chrysostom, "leave, as it 
were, something of their personality in those places where 
we have been with them, and when they are departed, we 
are sensible, with a tender sadness, of the perfume of 
their presence." 

With this perfume, this tender sadness, the good 
Mother's heart was full, and she goes on to say : " Alas ! 
all passes away with time : your remembrance alone re- 
mains to me, for an immense distance, the ocean itself, 
rolls between us ! " 

" Whatever the world may think," writes Mgr. Gay. 
" the heart grows but the warmer by self -purification : 
more elevated ideas produce greater sincerity of feeling, 
and it is a property of the religious life, thoroughly under- 
stood and holily practised, to develop considerably the 
power of affection. To love less would be a strange effect 
of a closer union with God ! " * 

Ah, no ! one loves not less but more ; one loves not for 
time, but forever, for eternity ! And full of this thought, 
the Mother continues : " But if the ocean part us here 
below, we shall meet again in eternity. Oh, that I could 
better express what this thought, ( We shall meet in eter- 
nity/ means to me, what consolation it gives me ! Wliat 
a joy shall be our first meeting in Heaven \ We shall be 
reunited, never, never again to part. Yes ; I confidently 
believe our good God will receive us all into His bosom, 

1 The Christian Life, by Mgr. Gay. 



Mother St. Johns Correspondence. 249 

granting us mercy by the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
" Let us implore the Blessed Virgin, our good Mother, 
and our glorious Patron St. Joseph, to obtain this grace 
for us all, my beloved daughters." 

After giving them details about herself, the clear Mother 
House, and the Sisters who were around her, she concludes 
her letter thus : " Write to me, I beg you, on the first 
occasion ; tell me everything that you do, all that you 
suffer ; pour into the heart of a mother who loves you 
tenderly, your trials, your cares, your anxieties, your joys, 

if you have any ; I shall share in all Let me 

not think that America makes you forget your old Mother, 
who embraces you each and all in our Lord Jesus Christ." 
On the 22d of February of the same year, after inform- 
ing them that Eev. Father Cholleton had become a Marist, 
and had been replaced as Superior of the Congregation, 
by the Abbe Grange, she speaks of the necessity of absolute 
confidence in God under trials and difficulties. " This," 
she says, " has been my only resource in all the trials, sor- 
rows, and tribulations of my long life. God can do all ; 
without Him we can effect nothing ; we must, like little 
children, cast ourselves into His arms. Whether we be in 
the height of misery or in the depth of the abyss, His al- 
mighty arm can restore us. Whatsoever this arm upholds, 
nothing shall put down, and what it abases, nothing can 
raise up." 

Encouraging them to live in the Divine Presence, she re- 
minds them that ' ' l\o matter where on this lower earth we 
may be, we are never exiled, uever far from the eyes of 
our Heavenly Father. Whether we be on one side of the 
Avorld or the other, in America or in Europe, everywhere 
He is the witness of our labors and our conflicts. When I 
think that you are in a different world from me, I am 
consoled by the reflection that we are all in the bosom of 
our God." 



250 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne. 

Thus, like Saint Basil the Great, she thought no place 
on earth more of an exile than another, as "the earth is 
the Lord's," in whom "we live and move and have our 
being." 

She recommends her children to do everything perfectly, 
everything for God, that their actions may be worthy 
of eternal recompense. She wishes them to be good, 
kind and patient, and to reprove others with sweetness. 
"All my desire," she concludes, "is that you become 
Saints, and that your little communities be truly regular 
and edifying. ... I conjure our Lord to shed on you, 
more and more copiously, His benedictions and to assist 
you ever with His grace." 

Mme. de la Kochejacquelin, united in affection with 
Mother St. John, shared her solicitude in regard to the 
missions so largely indebted to her zeal and charity. 

Writing to Mother Febronia on the 12th of November, 
1836, the noble Countess sa3 T s : " I am most eager to receive 
details of }^our establishment at Cahokia. What kind of 
a house do you live in ? Have you any grounds ? How 
many pupils have you ? Tell me how many pay, how 
many are free ? Shall you soon know English ? Have 
you any postulants ? Has Divine Providence granted you 
any resources ? In a word, my dear Mother, what do you 
live on ?*. . . Answer me as soon as possible, because I want 
to send you some things. Tell me what you most need. . . . 
I am anxious that you should attend the poor, the sick, 
and that you should open a little dispensary. You must 
learn from a doctor the medicinal properties of American 
plants. I shall try myself to procure for you a work on 
that subject. 

" Your venerable aunt is made hapjoy at the thought of 
your devotedness, which fears neither distance, climate, 
nor difficulty, when there is question of winning souls to 
Jesus Christ. Europe does not suffice for the ardent char- 



A Noble Correspondent. 251 

ity of the Sisters of St. Joseph. They have undertaken 
to teach in foreign lands the truths of our holy religion to 
minds and hearts hitherto uncultivated. Those are 
sheep without a pastor whom you are to lead into the fold 
of the Church. It is a difficult task, but the Crib and the 
Cross have triumphed over everything. Oh, may you be 
Saints ! . . . Pray for me that I may serve God as I should, 
after all the graces He has lavished on me and which I 
have so greatly abused. . . . Adieu, my dear little Moth- 
er ; be so kind as to present my respects to your Bishop 
and recommend me to his good prayers, to those of your 
community, your brother, and Mother Mary Delphine, 
your sister in a double sense. I offer a thousand wishes 
and prayers for you." 

In a letter of July 28th, 1841, the Countess expresses the 
pleasure she had felt on hearing from Mother Febronia : 
"Your letter of April 24th has been received with much 
delight. Numerous occupations have prevented my ac- 
knowledging it sooner, but I have also delayed in the 
hope of being able in a short time to send some money in 
my letter, so as to prove to you that the work you are 
engaged in is and ever shall be very dear to me. I ar- 
range all that with Eev. Mother St. John, your dear aunt. 

"I am happy to learn that your sister, Mother Delphine, 
has opened several establishments, and that you have re- 
ceived many subjects. You have made yourselves all to 
all ; you have put your trust in God and He has blessed 
you. 

" In your answer tell me all that concerns your Houses : 
their situation, their work, their object ; tell me the good 
they do ; the resources opened to you. May the little as- 
sistance I am able to send you be a consolation, an encour- 
agement. Rely upon God who can do all things, and that 
most effectually where creatures can do nothing. You are 
the mustard-seed; you will become a great tree whose 



252 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne. 

branches shall extend over that immense land whose time 
of civilization has arrived. 

" I am not worthy, my dear Mother, my beloved Sisters, 
to address to you such language ; but since God has put 
these thoughts at the end of my pen, I beg Him to realize 
them, to bless you, and to cement between you and your poor 
benefactress those links of charity which never shall be 
broken. I count much on the succor of your prayers for 
myself, my relatives, and friends. 

"The number of your Sisters in La Vendee, Touraine, 
Saint- Aubin and Usse is increased. The foundation of 
Annecy has been very prosperous ; it has already sent forth 
several swarms, 

" Implore God to bless these establishments, so that new 
convents may be opened, especially in the west of France, 
and that we may be enabled soon to open a novitiate there 
for the American Houses. This is both Mother St. John's 
hope and mine." 

These letters reveal the ardent faith and apostolic zeal 
of the uoble Vendean, and what a conformitiy of ideas ex- 
isted between herself and Mother St. John. Can we won- 
der that they encouraged the Sisters to whom they were 
addressed, since they were enforced by the more eloquent 
voice of example ? Well might the descendant of martyred 
heroes, and the religious who had herself confronted mar- 
tyrdom, inculcate heroism of faith to others ! 

The establishment of the American missions maybe con- 
sidered a fitting consummation of Mother St. John's long 
and blessed administration. As the glow of the setting 
sun illumines the decline of day, so we may say the close 
of her earthly pilgrimage was rendered brighter by the 
light reflected on it from the western world. For the love 
of God she had sacrificed her most legitimate affections, 
and with the confidence of St. Peter she could say : " I 
have left all things to follow Thee." Our Lord did, then, 



Growth of the Congregation. 253 

but accomplish His Divine promise by giving her " the 

hundred fold " in this life, li ere He called her unto life 

everlasting." 

* * * * 

As this, the Third Book of Mother St. John's Life, has 
been mainly devoted to information regarding the founda- 
tions of the Sisters of St. Joseph in different parts of the 
world, a statistical table of the various communities, con- 
vents, etc., of the Congregation will be a fitting supplement 
thereto. 

This information having been received directly from the 
majority of the Mother Houses themselves, the record is 
substantially correct, but from many houses in France and 
Italy we have been unable to obtain the desired data in 
time for publication. For the former we can partially sup- 
ply by extracts from documents drawn up for the Govern- 
ment in 1878, which, however, give but the number of the 
Sisters and the schools under their care in the various De- 
partments, without direct reference to the asylums and 
hospitals, which are, frequently, under the direction of 
one Community. 

From the subjoined record, incomplete as it is, it will 
be seen that the Congregation of St. Joseph, outgrowth of 
the little seed sown and cultivated in the retirement of Le 
Puy, has renewed in its extension and development the 
history of the devotion to St. Joseph, a devotion which, 
having for centuries "lain, as it were, dormant in the bos- 
om of the Church, " has, in later times, through the im- 
petus received from the infallible voice of Peter, become 
as universal as the Church herself. 1 

1 " It rose from a Confraternity in the white City of Avignon, and was cradled by 
the swift Rhone, that river of martyr memories that runs by Lyons, Orange, Vi- 
enne, and Aries, and flows into the same sea that laves the shores of Palestine. . . 

.... When it had filled Europe with its odor, it went over the Atlantic, 
plunged into theumbrnge of the back- woods, embraced all Canada, became a mighty 
missionary power, and tens of thousands of savages filled the forests and the roll- 
ing prairies with the praises of St. Joseph." (Faber.) 



254 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

So, too, from Scandinavia to Madagascar, from the 
Eastern shores of the Pacific to where, through the Golden 
Gate, its mighty waters roll to the feet of San Francisco, 
the Daughters of St. Joseph " are to be found in the hos- 
pitals of the poor, the asylums of the fallen, the cell of the 
prisoner, and the halls of the academy. . . . diffusing 
on every side the blessings of peace, consolation, and in- 
struction." * 

1 Catholicity in the United States, Murray: 



STATISTICS 



— OF THE 



iojijrigalitm dj fjp jl him til jSL %*&$ 

In the Eastern Hemisphere and South America. 





Congregation. 


Central or Mother- 


Foun 


- No. in a^^fc. 


Char. 




House. 


ded. 


Com. 




Inst. 


Lyons (1812) * 


Le Chartreux (Lyons) ; 


17— 


3000 


434 3 


48 


Le Puy (1315) i 


Le Puy 


1650 


748 


72 


12 


Clermont (1309) » 


Le Bon Pasteur (Cler't) 


1723 


560 


80 


15 


Boarg 


Belley 


1819 


1625 


223 5 




Gap (1837) i 


Gap 


1671 


130 


31 5 




Alby 


Ouiias 


1824 


300 


14 6 




Bordeaux 


Bordeaux 


1840 


360 


40 5 




St. Gervais-sur-Marc 


St. Gervais 


* 


552 


156 5 




Dep't of Ardeche * 


Aux Vans, etc., 


* 


1445 


395 5 




" " Aveyron 4 


Clairveaux, etc., 


* 


645 


119 s 




" " Jura 4 


Champagnole, etc., 


* 


89 


25 « 




" " Drome 4 


St. Vallier, etc., 


* 


115 


16 5 




" " Cantal, Tarn, etc. 4 




+ 
* 


102 
234 


*5 

140 5 




" " H'te Pyrenees 4 


Tarbes, etc., 




" " Mayenne 4 


Laval, etc.. 


* 


69 


* 




" " Maine-et-Loire 4 


Bauge, etc, 


* 


78 


* 






' Chamb^ry 


Chambery 


1812' 




45 


12 


's ^ 


Roman 


Rome 


1839 




5 


3 


O Sh 


Bourbonnais 


Cusset 


1854 




12 


1 


ia' 


Danish 


Copenhagen 


1856 i- 


800 


8 


2 


O 33 


Brazilian 


Itu 


1858 




6 


6 


o 


Scandinavian 


Stockholm 


1862 




5 


2 




k Russian 


St. Petersburg 


1863 J 




2 


1 


. ' . f Annecy 
c <! § j India 


Annecy 


1833 


363 


* 


i 


Vizagapatam 


1852 


78 


10 


2 


t> o a 1 England 


Newport 


1864 


33 


4 


2 


■ga f St. Jean deMaurienne 


St. J. de M. 


1822 




* 


* 


b j. $ S J India 
cl% | Africa 


Vizlanagram 


1852 


100 






* 


1884 




* 


* 


acc IS. America 


Buenos Ayres 


1884 




* 


* 


Moutiers 


Moutiers 


1825 


150 


20 5 




Turin 


Turin 


1821 


* 


* 


* 


Pignerol 


Pignerol 


1825 


* 


* 


* 










11576 







Date of Restoration after the Revolution. 

2 The Congregation of Lyons extends over eighteen dioceses of France. 

3 The statistics for schools include Communal Schools, Pensionnats, Externats, 
and Salies d'Asile to the great majority of which are attached Dispensaries for the 
poor and sick. 

* For the sake of brevity, we here include all the Sisters of St. Joseph in the De- 
partment 6 Probably, the number of Convents. * Not given. 

2o5 



STATISTICS 



— OP THE — 



Irotgrajafom xtf % jS him txl jSL Ia$*plj 



In North America, in 1886. 



Diocese 

or 
Province. 


Provincial or 
Mother House. 


Q 

H 
Q 

& 
O 

1836 


- H 

&< 1-, 

O Z 

. t> 

S S 





500 


< 
O 

3 


S c 


§2 


Ph E-i 

<, CO 

B 85 




St. Louis, Mo. 


Mother House, Carondelet 


45 


10933 


6 


.2 

'3 



St. Paul, Minn. 


St. Joseph's Convent. 


1351 


125 


2 


19 


1965 


3 




Troy, N. Y. 


" 


1861 


125 


3 


20 


6017 


1 


c« 


,. Arizona Ty. 


" Tucson. 


1869 


95 


— 


1 


750 


2 


f Phila., Pa. 


Mt. St. Joseph, Chestnut Hill. 


1847 


274 


12 


15 


8845 


3 


•3 ■( Baltimore, Md. 

fc 1 

t Newark, N. J. 


U 11 


1875 


18 


— 


3 


848 


— 


It ti 


1872 


28 


2 


3 


1105 


— 


Wheeling, W. Va. 


St. Joseph's Convent. 


1853 


76 


1 


11 


1200 


2 


Buffalo, N. Y. 


Mt. St. Joseph. 


1854 


133 


2 


15 


2970 


3 


Rochester, N. Y. 


Nazareth Convent. 


1854 


180 


3 


16 


5018 


5 


Brooklyn, N. Y. 


St. Jos. Convent, Flushing. 


1856 


250 


6 


20 


9588 


2 


Erie, Pa. 


it 


1862 


65 


4 


8 


2S90 


4 


McSherrystown, Pa. 


tt 


1868 


40 


3 


6 


484 


2 


g ^ j Ebensburg, Pa. 


Mt. Gallitzin. 


1869 


51 


1 


3 


1045 


— 


gj= [ Columbus, 0. 


tt 


1877 


14 


1 


3 


500 


— 


Boston, Mass. 


Mt. St. Joseph, Cambridge. 


1873 


69 


1 


4 


1626 


— 


Rutland, Vt. 


11 


1876 


24 


1 


3 


704 


— 


Springfield, Mass. 


St. Michael's Convent. 


1880 


42 


— 


4 


1950 


— 


St. Augustine, Fla. 


St. Joseph's Convent. 


1866 


70 


6 


8 


* 


— 


Savannah, Ga. 


" Washington. 


1867 


34 


2 


3 


115 


1 


CANADA. 
















sa . I Toronto. 

J 


St. Jos. Convent, Toronto. 


1851 


157 


5 


15 


1907 


5 


g 1 Peterborough. 


ti » 


it 


19 


2 


3 


390 


2 


Hamilton. 
London. 


" Hamilton. 
Mt. Hope, London. 

Total. 


1852 
1868 


100 

54 


— 


11 
4 


2450 
775 


6 
3 


2543 


60 


249 


64075 


50 



256 



jjfottrtlj %ook. 

Closing Years of Mother St. John's Life. 
CHAPTER I. 

Mother St. John's desire to secure a suitable successor. — Mother 
Sacred Heart of Jesus is appointed Assistant Superior General. — 
The Mother General's greatness of soul. — Her re-election. 




RRIVED at the limits of human life, and con- 
vinced that death could not be far distant, the 
Mother General made it her fervent petition to 
God that He would make known to her a soul capable of 
aiding her in her endeavors for the perfection and consoli- 
dation of the Congregation, one who could assume the bur- 
den she had so long borne. He who has said, " Seek and you 
shall find," deigned, ere long, to reveal to her the priceless 
treasure her Congregation possessed in a soul Avhose only 
desire was to live hidden in God, and dead to the world. 
Being on her visitation of one of her convents, Mother St. 
John was suddenly enlightened as to the designs of God, 
and joyfully exclaimed: ee At last have I found her whom I 
needed for our dear Congregation." This chosen soul 
was Mother Sacred Heart of Jesus, known in the world as 
Virginia Tezenas clu Mont eel, a religious to whose nobility 
of birth were added gifts of nature and of grace which 
have made her the glory of her Congregation, the admira- 
tion of her contemporaries. 1 Mgr. Plantier, the famous 

1 See her Life, by I'Abbe Rivaux. 



258 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

Bishop of Nismes, speaking of her, has said : " Mother 
St. John re-created the Congregation of St. Joseph ; 
Mother Sacred Heart has a second time restored it: the lat- 
ter act, it seems to me, is equally as great as the former." 

Having for several years been Mistress of Novices at Mi- 
Careme, — that blessed community of Saint-Etienne whose 
religious have been chosen by God for so many important 
works, — Mother Sacred Heart was appointed Superior 
of that House, which office she filled at the time of which 
we write. 

Mother St. John had long known and appreciated her 
worth, but it was only on the occasion of her last visitation 
that she received the mysterious intimation, which, indeed, 
proved prophetic. 

The great age and failing strength of the Mother- General 
convinced Mgr. de Pins that a co-operatrix in the govern- 
ment of the Congregation was necessary ; and, by virtue 
of his authority as Superior, he named for that office 
Mother Sacred Heart, Superior of Saint-Etienne. Her 
parents, however, who had never become fully reconciled 
to Virginia's vocation, raised great opposition, and by 
every means in their power tried to retain her at Saint- 
Etienne, which was but a short distance from the family 
domain of Mont eel. 

But it was the will of Divine Providence that the in- 
spiration and hope given to Mother St. John should be ac- 
complished. Mother Sacred Heart was accordingly sum- 
moned to Le Chartreux, and formally installed as Assistant- 
General. Here she found herself, for a time, placed in a 
very delicate position. God, who had so great a future in 
reserve for her, permitted that the path of office should at 
first prove a thorny one, and that by the difficulties she 
had to encounter, the depth and solidity of her virtue, of 
which her Superior was fully cognizant, should be proved 
to the community in general. 



Appointment of Mother Sacred Heart. 259 

The majority of the Sisters of the Mother House of Ly- 
ons most ardently desired that Mother St. John, the re- 
storer of their Congregation, should retain its government 
until the end of her life. Others, sensible that, on ac- 
count of her great age, they could not hope to keep her 
very long in their midst, had cast their eyes on Sister An- 
toinette Louis, as being the religious most capable of aid- 
ing the Mother by whom she had been trained to the re- 
ligious life, and with whom her office of Secretary had for 
years brought her into the closest relations. Both these 
classes, into whose affection for the Superior human feel- 
ing and sentiment had crept, resented the appointment of 
Mother Sacred Heart, of whose virtues and qualifications 
they had no knowledge. Judging that the Archbishop's 
action was but the preparatory step to the Mother General's 
deposition, they were not slow to show their feelings and 
express their prejudices, forgetting that the voice of au- 
thority is the voice of God, and that judgments grounded 
on passion must necessarily be false. Mother Sacred 
Heart was not ignorant of the suspicions entertained in 
regard to her by some of her Sisters, and the knowledge 
added not a little to the weight of a cross she had felt 
almost beyond her strength. She who, on her appointment 
as local Superior, fourteen years previously, had felt such 
anguish as turned her hair white in one night, could not, 
but with extreme grief, behold herself called to the exalted 
and responsible position of Assistant-General. Wisely 
dissembling, however, she met coldness only with kindness, 
and made the Sacred Heart of Jesus the sole Depositary of 
her loneliness and sorrow. " Patience had its perfect 
work; " it was not long ere those who had distrusted her 
most became her warmest admirers and most devoted 
children. 

The Mother General, as we may well believe, had had no 
share in the feelings to which we have just alluded. Ac- 



260 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

customed, in all the occurrences of life, to look first to the 
Divine will, and endowed with that gift which the Holy 
Spirit calls latitudinem cordis, she rose superior to those 
littlenesses which are but too frequently to be found in or- 
dinary souls. Hence she received with maternal tender- 
ness the dear Sister whom God had sent to be the stay and 
support of her declining years ; she lavished on her tokens of 
affectionate and delicate attention, seeming b} T every act 
to repeat with St. John : She "must increase but I must 
decrease." Making her great age the cloak of her humil- 
ity, she tried to put Mother Sacred Heart forward on 
every occasion. This feeling of humble and exquisite 
delicacy she carried almost to extremes, for on the approach 
of the time for election, she secretly withdrew from the 
Mother House and set out for Paris, where she intended to 
lodge at the monasteiy of the Yisitandines, whose Superior 
was her intimate friend. As the election was to take 
place after the annual retreat, Mother St. John's excuse 
was that she wished to make hers at a distance, so as to be 
free from business and preoccupation ; but in realit} r , her 
intention was to efface herself, as it were, from the minds 
of the Sisters, and to make them feel more free in their 
choice. From her first stopping-place on her journey she 
wrote to the Father Superior, entreating him not to recall 
her until after the election. To this M. Cholleton agreed, 
not without reproaching her for having undertaken so 
uncalled-for a journey. 

The Sisters, however, were not so easily pacified, for on 
the morning that followed her departure, they noticed her 
absence from Mass and the community breakfast, and 
hastened to her cell to find it untenanted, their feelings 
almost overpowered them. Inquiry elicited no informa- 
tion : the Portress had not opened or heard any one open 
the door. Only one thing was certain, — their Mother had 
gone ; why, they fully understood ; whither, they were 



Mother St. Joints Flight to Paris. 261 

not so sure. By Mother Sacred Heart's direction, one of 
the religious deeply devoted to her Superior set out to 
trace the steps of the would-be absentee. 

Examination of the lists at the Diligence Office disclosed 
that Mine. Fontionne had been one of the passengers ; and 
calling a carriage, Sister Delphine set off in her filial pur- 
suit. Two hours' rapid driving brought her up to the 
diligence, which had stopped for a relay of horses ; and 
there, calmly seated in the coach, she beheld her runaway 
Mother, whom she hastened to embrace with all the effu- 
sion of her heart, speaking more by tears than by words. 
Amazed at the sight of one whom she had thought in 
Lyons, engaged in the holy exercises of retreat, Mother St. 
John exclaimed : Ci What, my dear child ! you here ? But 
who told you where I was ? What has brought you so far 
from home ?" te Mother/' she replied, " we guessed 
everything. We had only to follow your traces, and I 
have done so in the greatest anxiety of mind. Now I 
have found you, I shall not leave you again. How 
could you leave us just when we had most need of you ? 
How could you, who are so good, subject your children to 
such alarm and sadness ?" Tenderly sensible of her Sis- 
ters' affection, the Mother could not restrain her tears at the 
recital of their emotion. Nevertheless, she urged Sister 
Delphine to return at once to Lyons, saying that God 
would watch over her during her journey to Paris, and 
that she would arrive there in good health. " No, no, 
Mother," replied Sister Dephine; " I will not leave you; 
like Euth the Moabite, I shall be where you will be. I 
repeat it, I will not go; I am here by the wish of your 
spiritual family." 

i( But, my dear child," answered Mother St. John with 
that simple naivete habitual to her, " it is impossible for 
me to take you with me. I have only enough to pay my 
own fare." " Oh, you need not be anxious on that point," 



2(5 2 Life of Rev. Mo the 7' St. Jo hi Fontbonne. 

replied Sister Delphine. " The diligence is to stop at 
Roaime ; and I can there draw on my father's banker. He 
will only be too happy to give me the means of accom- 
panying you." 

At Koanne, accordingly, Sister Delphine drew five hun- 
dred francs and wrote to that effect to her father, who, as 
she had foreseen, was pleased to be of some service to the 
Mother General, whom he venerated as a Saint. 

Mother St. John could not but be grateful for the ten- 
der attentions of her beloved child, and with a look of 
maternal affection, she exclaimed : " You are the guardian 
angel of your old Mother ; may our Lord recompense your 
filial devotedness ! " 

On arriving at Paris she was most cordially and affec- 
tionately received by the Daughters of St. Francis de 
Sales, and, as soon as possible, she entered on her spiritual 
retreat, which she made with all the fervor of her soul. 
Entire days she spent in the chapel, so absorbed in the 
presence of her Beloved, so dead to all external things, that 
it became necessary, at certain times, to recall her to hersel f . 
Having, on one occasion, by this means, been the cause of 
an hour's delay to the community, she was overwhelmed 
with confusion, most humbly begged pardon, and begged 
Sister Delphine, as her guardian angel, to prevent the re- 
currence of so great a fault. 

In the meantime, the retreat at Lyons had been closed 
and the general elections held, with the result that Mother 
St. John was unanimously re-elected Superior General, 
with Mother Sacred Heart as Assistant. Father Cholleton 
wrote to Paris to apprize her of the result and order her to 
return immediately " to that spiritual family who were so 
eager to greet her again." The news was far from joyful 
to her who had hoped for a respite from labor, but she, in 
all simplicity, obeyed the summons, and returned to the 
Mother House, where, in her honor, they held a veritable 



Mother St. John and her Assistant. 263 

feast, a triumph. The bells were rung in token of the joy 
felt by the community, the Te Deum was solemnly chant- 
ed in the chapel, and every one insisted on seeing her, 
speaking to her, and embracing her. Mingling reproaches 
with their welcome, the Sisters exclaimed : " Why, Mother, 
did you leave us in such a way?" "Ah, well," she re- 
plied, pleasantly, " was it not better that I should ? If I 
had stayed here in some little corner of the chapel, some 
of you might have thought : l There is that good old wo- 
man ; we must nominate her ; it won't do to give her up.' 
But when I wasn't here, nobody could see me." Ah, how 
beautiful is childlike humility ! How sweet, how edifying 
is Christian union ! 

Finding themselves again, by the voice of God, placed 
conjointly at the head of the Congregation of St. Joseph, 
Mother St. John and Mother Sacred Heart governed it 
with perfect unanimity of spirit and action. Their sin- 
cere affection, mutual respect, deference, and veneration 
were a most edifying spectacle to all who beheld them. 
Mother Sacred Heart rejoiced that her duties brought her 
into daily contact with one whose life was a living repro- 
duction of her Eule, and whose example was that of a 
Saint. She did nothing" but by her advice and consent, 
showing the most absolute and filial obedience. On her 
part, Mother St. John, whose age, infirmities, and deep hu- 
mility, more than all, made her sigh to be released from the 
burden of superiority, labored assiduously to initiate her 
Assistant into the duties of the office, to instruct her on 
its requirements, and to win for her the affections of the 
other Sisters. The humble and charitable struggle car- 
ried on between those two venerable Mothers in the deli- 
cate circumstances by which they were surrounded was a 
living reproduction of the touching records of the Saints. 
Mother St. John, so pure, peaceful, and majestic, was, as 
it were, a planet tending towards its decline ; Mother Sa- 



264 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

cred Heart, as a bright and beautiful morning-star, called 
by the voice of God to shine for awhile in union with her, 
and later, to illumine alone the religious firmament. 

God willed, however, that the close of that long and 
eventful life should bear, in a special manner, the seal of 
salvation, the sign of the holy Cross; and a cross all the 
heavier because it came from the hands of her Superiors. 

This cross, with which God has so often crowned the 
summit of His servants' perfection, is the desolation, the 
abandonment of Calvary, which forces them to cry out, 
with their Divine Prototype, " My God, my God, why hast 
Thou forsaken me?" 1 

But, as we shall see, the grand soul of the Superior Gen- 
eral accepted, with edifying resignation and generosity, the 
final trial, for it is the storms of life that reveal the differ- 
ence between the good and the bad. Agitate a stagnant 
pool, says a great master of the spiritual life, and it will 
spread abroad infection; disturb, on the contrary, per- 
fumed waters, and the air becomes odorous. 

1 Mark xv. 34. 




CHAPTER II. 

Mgr. de Pins demands Mother St. John's resignation. — Election of 
Mother Sacred Heart. — Mother St. John obeys like a novice.— 
Last years of the Venerable Mother. — Her edifying patience.-— 
Her holy death. — Circular letters to the Congregation. — Grati- 
tude due to religious founders. 

E have already shown that Mother St. John, sensi- 
sible of her declining strength, would have been 
glad to retire from office. Scarcely, however, 
had she been reinstated by the choice of the Sisters, when, 
suddenly, without any previous notification or warning, 
without any of those little acts of consideration which 
might have seemed due to a Foundress, to a religious of 
half a century, the Archbishop of Lyons called on her to re- 
sign. It would seem, from some documents, that his Grace 
had been prejudiced against the Venerable Mother, and 
hence resulted a course of action which could not but be 
deemed somewhat severe. 2 However this may be, whether 
simply demanded, or harshly imposed, Mother St. John im- 
mediately gave in her resignation, not only with humility, 
but with eagerness and joy; asking only permission to spend 
in retreat, under the saintly Cure of Ars, the first days of 
her private life and her immediate preparation for eternity. 
There, in recollection and prayer, she conjured the Lord 
to bless her cherished daughters then engaged on their re- 

1 Among the Notes sent for this Life we find the following : Mother St. John had 
received from the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius VII., a Brief by which she was named 
Superior General for life of the Sisters of St. Joseph.— Yet she never revealed it. 



266 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

treat, at the close of which the new Superior-General was 
to be elected. 

The unanimous choice of the community fell on Rev. 
Mother Sacred Heart, Mother St. John's second self; and 
the latter, on receiving the news, hastened her return from 
Ars. Great was the joy and edification of the community 
on beholding the late Superior again in their midst, and as 
she knelt, with the humility of the youngest novice, to kiss 
the hand of Mother Sacred Heart and promise obedience 
to her, the Sisters were all moved to tears. 

Thenceforth the lowest place became the sole object of 
her ambition, and she studied by every means to profit by 
the occasions of humiliation which the religious life af- 
fords. Mother Sacred Heart would fain have interfered to 
prevent it, but Mother St. John earnestly begged her not 
to do so. i( Allow me, Mother, to act in this way," she 
used to say; " I am so happy to obey! Our dear Lord is so 
good in granting me this time wherein to think of my 
eternity; and in affording me, for my greater merit, the 
means and opportunity of imitating Him." 

The same sentiments she expresses in her letters to her 
American children. " Never have I been more joyous or 
contented," writes she, (i as since I have had the happiness 

of being freed from the burden of superiority 

Every day I thank God for having given me some time in 
which to think only of my salvation. My only regret is 
that I do not profit sufficiently by it." 

A scrupulous observer of holy poverty, she would not 
suffer the Divine Master to find her standing idle, and she 
was continually employed in some kind of work. "Do 
not be uneasy," we read in another of her letters to her be- 
loved missionaries; "thanks be to God, I enjoy all my fac- 
ulties as well as when I was fifty years old, and now I am 
eighty-four. I rise with the community and am present at 
all the exercises. I write, I sew, I crochet, yet do not need 



Mother St. John as a Simple Religious. 267 

spectacles Help me to bless my God for 

granting me time and strength to lay up treasures for 
eternity." This is ever the refrain of her ardent faith. 

In view of this eternity she thought only of realizing 
that sublime maxim of her Rule : " Eegret that the world 
thinks of you. . . Believe this truth, that its thoughts and 
affections are uselessly bestowed on persons who so little 
merit them." " Ah, might I ask but one favor of you," 
said she to the Superior General, " it would be to let me 
occupy the little room on the passage-way, at the end of 
the court. There I should be more retired. That little 
solitude would help me to be more recollected ; I should 
have more freedom to speak heart to heart with my God ; 
and the Sisters would be freer in their relations with you." 
Mother Sacred Heart, however, anxious to keep her near 
herself, begged her to retain the same room as formerly, 
and to make no change in her accustomed habits. Filial 
delicacy and love on the one side, profound humility and 
self-abnegation on the other, struggled for the mastery, 
each being emulous of the better gifts, according to the 
expression of the Apostle. 

Mother St. John carried her point for the moment, but 
His Eminence Cardinal de Bonald interfered later on, and 
robbed her of her dearly loved " little corner." Still she 
continued to keep ever as her Model, Him who, for thirty- 
three years, set us the lesson of silence, retirement, 
humiliation, and the hidden life, and with the Apostle she 
might have exclaimed : My " life is hid with Christ in 
God. 1 .... I know both how to be brought low, and I 
know how to abound: (everywhere, and in all things lam 
instructed"). 2 

Oh, what an edifying spectacle was it to the Sisters, young 
and old, to see that Mother, doubly venerable for her four- 

* Colossians iii. 3. - Philippians iii. 12. 



268 Life of Rev. Mother St. Joint Fontbonne. 

score years of life and her more than half a century of 
religious profession, prostrating herself at the feet of her 
whom she had received to the Congregation, to beg her 
permission for Communion and the other daily acts of her 
conventual life ! And that beloved daughter, who then, 
by the will of God, held His place and acted by His author- 
ity, would, while granting the permission, tenderly raise 
up her aged Mother, to cast herself in turn before her to 
beg her maternal blessing ! blessed struggle of humility ! 
holy contest for self-abasement, wherein while one gloried 
in being the last, the other grieved at beholding herself 
the first ! 

It was Mother St. John's delight and joy to notice how, 
under the leadership of her successor, the Congregation 
continued to increase and enlarge its field of action ; and 
Mother Sacred Heart's loving attention to the Sisters' 
wants, her tender sympathy in their sickness and suffering, 
were received by the aged Mother as personal benefactions. 
Unable longer to walk unaided, she yet would not permit 
that a Sister should be detailed to help her, and in going 
to and from the chapel, she made use of a stick to support 
her tottering limbs. " I am come to serve, not to be 
served," were the words of her Divine Master, an imitation 
of whom she desired her every action to be ; and on this ac- 
count she insisted on attending herself to providing the 
water, etc., for her cell, though her children lovingly de- 
sired and endeavored to forestall her. Thus gradually was 
her life tending to its peaceful close, when God willed to 
lay her on a bed of suffering, whereon she might become 
more conformable to His Divine Son. One winter's day, 
while crossing the yard, her stick slipped and she fell heav- 
ily to the ground. She was unable to rise, but her children 
ran to her in all haste, tenderly lifted and carried her to 
her room. The physicians, upon examination, declared 
that her shoulder was dislocated, and, on account of her 



Last Years of the Venerable Mother. 269 

great age and infirmity, they were fearful for the conse- 
quences of the necessary operation. The head physicians 
of the Hotel-Dieu were called, and while the operation was 
being performed, the whole community, in a state of 
agonizing suspense, united in fervent supplications for its 
success. Mother Sacred Heart never left the side of the 
beloved sufferer, from whom there came not the least 
moan or the slightest complaint. At the sight of such 
angelic patience, Doctor Bonnet could not restrain the 
expression of his admiration. " It is very good when one 
has to deal with saintly people/* said he; " we can do with 
them whatever we wish. This good Mother, in the midst 
of her extraordinary sufferings, sets us an example of heroic 
patience and sublime resignation." God deigned to bless 
the filial attentions and prayers of the Sisters by granting to 
the operation a success they could scarcely have hoped for, 
and the rapid convalescence of the beloved patient gave 
the Congregation hopes of possessing her for some time 
longer. The respite was, nevertheless, but a brief one, 
and Mother Sacred Heart, in a circular letter to her chil- 
dren, writes, but a short time later : "I regret to be obliged 
to say that the state of our Eev. Mother St. John's health 
causes us grave uneasiness." And again: " Since our last 
circular, the suffering state of our venerable Mother St. 
John has more than once alarmed us ; at present, however, 
she is somewhat better. Continue to unite your prayers 
with ours for the prolongation of that life dear to us on so 
many titles." 

The improvement thus noted was of brief continuance, 
for in the next circular we read : " The life of our ven- 
erated and beloved Mother St. John has, for the past few 
da} T s, been seriously threatened. We have all the more 
reason to dread the disease, as her great age has deprived 
her of strength to struggle against it. Onr sole reliance 
now is on God ; let us redouble our prayers for her restora- 



2*] o Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne. 

tion. You know how many titles she has to our filial 
love. In a certain sense she has created our Congregation; 
her long administration was equally remarkable for the 
prudence of her acts, the wisdom of her counsels, the 
fecundity of her works. There is scarcely one amongst us 
whom she has not received to her holy vows ; scarcely one 
in whose regard she has not fulfilled the office of a mother. 
Her goodness, her high perfection, her admirable regu- 
larity, have ever made her the model for all, and make 
her so still, despite her eighty-four years. Ah, how 
ardent a desire for her re-establishment in health should 
such remembrances, such a spectacle excite within us ! 
With what fervor should we not unite in imploring God to 
spare to our imitation, our gratitude, and our love, a soul 
so rich in experience, virtue, and merit ! " This letter is 
dated March 11th, 1843. 

For several months Mother St. John lingered on in the 
same suffering condition, preaching still more eloquently 
to her children by her fervent prayer, calm and holy resig- 
nation to the Divine will, than she had ever done by 
words. With humble and child-like confidence she spoke 
of her last hour, and it was only the thought that such 
was the will of her Beloved that enabled her to restrain 
her holy longing for the termination of her exile. " Ah, 
have I still much longer to live ? " was the cry that burst 
from her lips but a few moments before her happy release. 
When answered that her chains would soon be broken, a 
smile of ineffable happiness beamed on her countenance ; 
then calmly, almost imperceptibly, she sank into the slum- 
ber of death : with her lamp illumined with the light of 
heroic faith and filled with the good works that had 
adorned her almost eighty-five years, she entered into the 
eternal feast of the Heavenly Bridegroom. 

Communicating to the Houses of the Congregation the 
news of their loss, Mother Sacred Heart writes ; " Our 



Her Death Announced to the Congregation. 271 

Rev. Mother St. John is no more. After sixty-three and 
a half years of religious profession, God called her to Him- 
self on the morning of November 22d, 1843, she being 
eighty-four years and eight months old. Her last mo- 
ments on earth were not less beautiful than the preceding 
years of her life. With her usual peaceful calm and un- 
troubled sweetness, she sank to sleep as sink the just, after 
a long life of glorious labor and extraordinary virtue. 

"Her obsequies were celebrated on the 23d with a relig- 
ious pomp worthy of her who was its object. All our Sis- 
ters who could, came to the ceremony, lovingly desirous to 
aid us in paying, in the name of the whole Congregation, 
the last tribute of regard and affection to her whom we have 
so long admired as the most perfect of religious, the most 
prudent and enlightened of Superiors, and the tenderest of 
Mothers. We take this opportunity of expressing our grat- 
itude to them. 

" Continue to recommend to God in your prayers the 
soul of our beloved Mother ; and let the ardor of our sup- 
plications bear some proportion to the extent of the bene- 
fits we have received from her, and that wealth of sweet 
and holy memories which she has left us as our heritage." 

" After the Holy Scriptures," says a zealous prelate, 
"there is nothing so attractive to me as the Lives of the 
Saints. I know of nothing more useful to souls. In my 
opinion, nothing is better calculated, not only to animate 
the soul and strengthen the faint-hearted, but yet more 
to lead back to God and religion those whom the temp- 
tations of the world have led astray. ' Though dead, 
the Saints still speak/ writes the Apostle, and, we may 
add, more eloquently in death than in life." 

This is especially true of Saints who have been founders 
or restorers of religious orders, and who have left after 
them a numerous posterity of servants of God, wholly de- 
voted to His service and that of their neighbor, For they 



272 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

live not alone by the perfume of the example they have 
left behind them ; they continue to act, to speak, in the 
persons of their spiritual children, and their work is per- 
petuated, extended, multiplied ; the world, meanwhile, 
forgetful or contemptuous in regard to those to whom it 
owes such incalculable benefits. 

To this class of the holy ones of God, Mother St. John be- 
longs ; angelic legions, who, to her, under God, can trace 
their religious life, combat in two hemispheres either the 
dangers of mental ignorance, or the innumerable host of 
miseries that are the heritage of humanity from the cradle 
to the tomb. 

Blessed, then, forever blessed, be the founders of those 
holy nurseries whence issue forth the glorious militia of 
faithful teachers and guardians of youth. " The highest 
interest of modern times and of society in its actual state 
is Christian education," says Cardinal Guibert. And, 
adds M. Chesnelong, " Of all the creations of Catholic 
devotedness, there is none more beautiful, none more 
fruitful, none more popular, in the best and highest sense 
of the word, than those congregations of Brothers and 
Sisters devoted to education. " 

While free-thinkers and atheists are prodigal only of the 
speeches — as high-sounding, as they are deceitful and 
poisonous — in which they land popular education, which to 
them means the ignoring or the denial of God, the religious 
orders of teachers devote, unreservedly, talents, time, labor, 
nay, even life itself to the diffusion of true knowledge, the 
advancement of that education alone worthy of the name, 
because it gives the first place to that science which enno- 
bles all the others, the knowledge of God and the religious 
obligations of man. 

Science, properly so called, must ever be the possession 
of the few, but with religion one is instructed though he 
may not become learned. She teaches necessary duties, 



Gratitude due to Religious Founders. 273 

she reveals useful truths to the vast multitudes who have 
neither talent, time, nor opportunity for painful research. 
Woe, then, to those who seek to destroy that source of 
sacred instruction which sows good maxims everywhere, 
renders them living, present realities, perpetuates them by 
linking them with durable and permanent establishments, 
and communicates to them that character of authority and 
popularity, wanting which they would remain foreign to 
the people, that is, to the far greater majority of men ! 




CHAPTER III. 

Mother St. John's portrait. — Efficacy of her prayers with God. — 
Testimony rendered to the virtues of her American mission- 
aries. 

N the course of this history we have endeavored to 
give, as far as lay in our power, the moral and 
mental portrait of the holy foundress of the 
Congregation of St. Joseph in Lyons ; realizing, mean- 
while, how difficult, nay, how impossible it would, be to 
give a complete picture of the life of one whose most earn- 
est endeavor was to realize in herself that maxim of her holy 
rule : " Let your good actions be hidden in time and 
known only to God, that they may appear in eternity, or 
never appear, if such be the will of God." The inner life 
of His Saints God generally keeps in the secret of His Di- 
vine counsels, allowing it to reveal itself on earth only by 
the aroma of sanctity, which, like the perfume of a con- 
cealed exotic, diffuses itself on all sides, intangible, im- 
palpable, but sensibly and powerfully beneficent to all who 
come within the sphere of its influence. 

Agreeing with Chateaubriand, " that the most beauti- 
ful eulogy one could write on the life of a religious would 
be to present a list of the labors to which it has been con- 
secrated/' we have spoken of the noble work inaugu- 
rated by her, or by those acting under her direction, and 
of foundations even "to the uttermost bounds of the 
earth," which are but branches of the glorious tree planted 
by her hand. 

We can imagine how earnestly the Sisters must have 
desired to obtain for themselves and succeeding genera- 



Mother St. Johns Portrait. 275 

tions the pictured lineaments of her with whom the sweet 
and blessed memories of the restoration of the Institute 
were inseparably connected ; but on this point she was inex- 
orable. The most pressing entreaties met with a gentle yet 
firm refusal : her humility was alarmed at the very thought 
that her picture might be handed down as that of the 
Foundress and Restorer. Nevertheless, her children were 
not to be robbed of their natural right ; and the possession 
of a portrait of their venerable Mother, as true and striking 
in resemblance as perfect in execution, is due to the talent 
and affection of the Countess de Virieu, the foundress of 
the establishment of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Grand- 
Lemps. Taking advantage of a visit of gratitude which 
the Eev. Mother made her in 1836, the noble lady availed 
herself of every favorable moment to obtain what she so 
ardently longed for. When her religious guest finally per- 
ceived on what work the Countess was engaged, she de- 
sired to withdraw, but the delicacy of the circumstances in 
which she was placed, and the affectionate earnestness of 
her hostess, won the victory. 

The Houses of the Congregation were not slow to obtain 
copies of the stolen portrait, for such we may call it ; and 
when, on her visitations, she saw such pictures and recog- 
nized how futile had been her long resistance, the Mother 
used, with simple naivete, to deplore the tender deception 
that had been practised on her. 

Mother St. John's countenance, as revealed in this pic- 
ture, is all that our imagination would have led us to sup- 
pose the fitting accompaniment of the beautiful soul with- 
in. There is in it such an air of blended majesty and 
sweetness, that one is at no loss to understand the charm 
which attracted souls to her at first sight ; and while it 
images forth that high and magnanimous spirit which, 
with the great Apostle, dared to say, ' ' I can do all things 
in Him who strengtheneth me," speaks no less eloquently of 



2 y 6 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbo7ine. 

a maternal love, an unfailing charity, that made itself 
" all to all, to gain all to Christ. " 

The power of Mother St. John's intercession with God 
has been several times manifested, both before and. after 
her death. In 1838, one of the postulants in the Novitiate 
of Lyons was attacked by a brain fever so violent that 
four persons could not restrain her convulsive movements. 
The moment of dissolution seemed at hand, yet there was 
no possibility of administering the last Sacraments. In 
this extremity, Mother St. John drew near the bed and 
said : "In the name of God, my child, calm yourself ; " 
then taking holy water, she made the sign of the cross on 
the closed eyelids of the patient. At that moment the 
fever and convulsions ceased, the young girl recovered the 
full use of her senses, and remained calm for one hour, 
during which time she received, with edifying dispositions, 
the last rites of the Church. Everybody attributed this 
precious favor to the virtue and prayers of the Rev. Mo- 
ther. 

During a very rigorous winter, the supply of coal in her 
convent was exhausted, and owing to her poverty, she was 
unable to purchase more ; she endeavored, however, to in- 
spire the Sisters with a more fervent spirit of prayer and 
unwavering confidence in Divine Providence. Full of 
this holy spirit, Sister St. Ursula, who had charge of attend- 
ing the fires, used, day after day, as she took what seemed 
to be almost the last shovelful of coal, fall on her knees 
before the little remnant, and with tears implore of God to 
have pity on the poor Rev. Mother, whose only reliance was 
on Him, and to save her from distress. Every day there 
was a repetition of the same fear, the same prayer, with the 
result that what had seemed insufficient for the coming 
day lasted until the close of that long and severe winter. 
The Sisters attributed this prodigy to the faith and trust 
of their venerable Superior. 



Efficacy of Mother St. JoJnis Intercession. 277 

After the decease of this holy Mother, a young religious, 
occupied by obedience in transcribing some details of her 
life, received news that her uncle, a holy religious who had 
been a second father to her, had been attacked by a violent 
epidemic and lay at the point of death. " my good 
Mother St. John!" cried she with faith and simplicity, "I 
am laboring for you. If you are in Heaven, obtain from 
God the preservation of my dear uncle." Almost on the 
instant she received word that the beloved invalid was bet- 
ter; and but a short time later, was advised of his perfect 
recovery, which, on account of his great age, exhausted 
strength, and the virulence of the malady, could hardly 
have been expected. 

Another religious who was attacked by a temptation of ex- 
treme antipathy against her Superior, which she had labored 
in vain to overcome, felt an inspiration, after an unusually 
long and violent struggle, to have recourse to Mother St. 
John and to go and pray at her tomb. Following the at- 
traction of grace, she said to her in all simplicity: " my 
Mother, you who were so good; you who knew so well how 
to love us all; you who have borne with such sweet and 
maternal patience the contrarieties of various characters and 
dispositions, you see my difficulty. You see that I suffer, 
that I make others suffer: help me to come forth victorious 
from the conflict. I have confidence in you, for I know 
you are in Heaven, and are all-powerful in the presence of 
God." So humble and filial a prayer could not fail of be- 
ing heard; the Sister's sentiments underwent a wonderful 
change, and that soul that had been so anxious and unhap- 
py was strengthened and encouraged; her dislike and ill- 
feeling gave place to the sweetest confidence and charity. 

Two Sisters of St. Joseph from a distance, being on a 
visit to Lyons, were anxious to see the tomb of Mother St. 
John, for whose memory they had the greatest veneration. 
But for want of exact information, they were unable to 



278 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Font bonne. 

find her grave among the hosts that filled the immense ne- 
cropolis of Loyasse. Wearied and disheartened, after 
hours of useless search, they fell on their knees and with 
tears besought their Mother, in the words of the Spouse of 
the Canticles, ' ' to show them the place of her repose." ' ( My 
Sisters, I am here," answered a sweet voice, distinctly heard 
and recognized by each of the petitioners. Turning to 
where it indicated, they found themselves at the sacred 
spot they had so long and vainly sought. We can judge 
what then must have been the fervor of their supplications, 
how deep must have been their feelings of gratitude and 
filial love! Their souls were inundated with grace at the 
hallowed spot whence their Mother had deigned to speak 
to them. 

About three months after the Eev. Mother's death, one 
of her children went to the Cure of Ars to offer an hono- 
rarium for Masses for the repose of her soul. But the holy 
priest refused to say them for that intention, adding de- 
cidedly: "Your Eev. Mother does not need them. She 
is high in glory; I know it." If these words were not the 
expression of a particular revelation, they, at least, prove 
what an exalted opinion the Thaumaturgus of Ars had of 
the sanctity of the deceased, whom he had known long 
and intimately. Thus of two Sisters of St. Joseph, 
Mother St. Joseph of Bordeaux and Mother St. John of 
Lyons, the Saint of Ars has rendered the consoling testi- 
mony of their eternal beatitude. 

In the Life of Rev. Mother Sacred Heart of Jesus we 
read that she would never allow any one to speak in the 
presence of a sick Sister of her virtues and good qualities, 
and that the wisdom of this precaution was fully proved by 
the following occurrence, which took place in one of the 
communities of St. Joseph in Lyons, some years after 
Mother St. John's death. One of the religious, at the 
point of death, had lost her speech and become, apparently, 



Mother Delphi7ie 2 7 ontbonne. 279 

wholly unconscious. Nevertheless, she still had the power 
of hearing, of which those around her were ignorant. 

The Sisters, who deeply regretted her loss, expressed 
their grief aloud, eulogizing her virtues and good quali- 
ties. The devil, who is especially eager for his prey in the 
last struggle, tempted the poor Sister to vain complacency, 
and she entertained the thought with pleasure. She felt 
herself immediately transported before the throne of the 
Sovereign Judge and condemned. Then she thought she 
saw Mother St. John prostrate herself at the feet of our 
Lord, crying : " Mercy, my God ! she is one of my chil- 
dren. Give her time and strength to confess V Her 
prayer was granted, and the Sister, returning to herself, 
cried aloud, " A priest ! quick ! a priest I" The minister 
of God arrived, heard the confession of the agonizing Sister, 
who immediately expired after having received absolution. 
She had authorized the confessor to reveal to her Sisters 
what had occurred, which he did, strongly warning them 
against ever speaking in praise of the dying in their 

presence. 

* * * * 

" The just that walketh in simplicity," says Solomon, 
" shall leave behind him blessed children," and in the 
children through whom Mother St. John founded the In- 
stitute of St. Joseph in America, the promise has been fully 
verified. Lovers of their holy Superior with the love that 
impels to imitation, they were, according to the testimony 
rendered by their Sisters and others to whom they were 
intimately known, disciples, who, like Eliseus, merited to 
inherit the spirit and mantle of their teacher, whose 
work they were to perpetuate and extend. 

The first of this little band to rejoin her Mother where 
" parting shall be no more," was Mother Delphine Font- 
bonne, to whose life and labors we have had occasion, dur- 
ing the course of this work, frequently to advert. After 



280 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

having established the Congregation in Toronto and Ham- 
ilton, and inspired the Sisters with the true spirit of the 
Institute, it pleased God to crown her life by the glorious 
death of a martyr of charity. 

About the beginning of the year 1856, a patient was ad- 
mitted into the common ward of the Sisters' Hospital, 
who, as was discovered when too late, was attacked by a 
virulent and contagious fever. The disease spread rapidly 
among the inmates, and nine of the Sisters fell victims to 
its ravages. During this period of sorrow and trial, Mother 
Delphine's courage never failed, and although it is known 
that she had a great natural dread of fever, she was devoted 
and unwearied in her attendance on the sick. After hav- 
ing assisted at the death-beds of two of her Sisters, she 
herself succumbed to the disease ; and having taught her 
children, by her example, how the Spouse of a crucified 
God should suffer, she calmly passed to her eternal rest. 

In a letter addressed to Rev. M. Denavit, Director of 
the Grand Seminary of Lyons, to be communicated to Rev. 
Fr. Fontbonne, Mother Delphine's brother, Rt. Rev. Mgr. 
de Oharbonnel, Bishop of Toronto, thus expresses him- 
self :— 
"My dear friend: 

" It will be easier for you than for me to find the Abbe 
Fontbonne, formerly a missionary in America, and at pres- 
ent stationed in the diocese of Lyons, somewhere about 
Verrieres, if I am not mistaken. 

"It is my sad duty to announce to him that his sister, 
Mother Delphine Fontbonne, foundress and Superioress of 
the Religious of St. Joseph in Toronto, entered into her 
eternal reward, February 7, 1856, one hour after midnight, 
holily fortified with all the rites of the Church, and sur- 
rounded by the most devoted attentions. 

" This excellent and worthy niece of the saintly Mother 
St. John, had, in five years, established in Toronto a 



Bishop de CharbonneVs Testimony. 281 

novitiate, an orphan asylum, a House of Providence, which 
affords to the poor every spiritual and temporal succor, 
and several other houses in the diocese. Endowed with 
great wisdom and experience, this holy Superior en- 
forced the Eule with sweetness and firmness. Her judg- 
ment was solid, her mind clear and penetrating, her pru- 
dence enlightened and far-seeing. She was laborious, ener- 
getic, active, and provident. 

(i At the age of twenty-one she was appointed Superior 
of the first colony of Sisters sent from France to St. Louis, 
and now she is dead at the early age of forty-two. Her 
robust health promised her a long life, but she has fallen a 
victim to her charity, while attending some of her Sisters 
and novices stricken with fever. 

"Will you be so kind as to transmit this communica- 
tion to her Eeverend brother, and inform, also, the Eev. 
Superior General of the Mother House of Lyons that the 
suffrages of the community may be given our dear deceased 
Sister, although I feel assured she has entered into beati- 
tude 

" We are now somewhat in distress, but have written to 
Eev. Mother Celestine of Oarondelet, begging her to come 
to our aid. . . . 

" I hope when I go to Europe to be able to get a con- 
siderable number of Sisters and novices. We have work 

here for a hundred at present, if we could get them 

The religious are called to do immense good here, and, as 
I sometimes tell them, they can do everything but give 
absolution ; they can, however, give, instead, perfect con- 
trition and charity." 

SJC 5|C 5j* 5jC 

But Mother Celestine herself was, in the inscrutable de- 
signs of God, to be called to her reward about one year 
later, at a time when, humanly speaking, circum- 
stances conspired to render her presence more than ever 



28 2 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Foiitbonne. 

necessary to the rapidly developing communities of St. 
Joseph in America. 

This saintly religious was born in 1814, at Tellien, in 
Burgundy, and was early confided by her parents to the 
care of the Sisters of St. Charles at Macon. By her ardent 
piety and purity of life, she merited to receive tlxat invita- 
tion of the Spouse : " Hearken, daughter, and see, and 
incline thine ear : and forget thy people and thy father's 
house, and the king shall greatly desire thy beauty/' 

The better to free herself from the importunities of her 
family and the endearments of home, she, with the advice 
of her confessor, decided to enter a community at some 
distance ; and accordingly, at the age of fifteen, she was 
received into the Novitiate of the Sisters of St. Joseph at 
Lyons, where she made her profession, October 15, 1832. 
During her novitiate she had made known to her Superiors 
her wish to devote her life to the propagation of the faith 
in foreign countries, and when there was question of select- 
ing subjects for the American Mission, Mother St. John 
remembered the wish of her fervent disciple. Sister Ce- 
lestine had, in the meantime, been sent to the Diocese of 
Chambery, but she was summoned thence to sail with the 
first band of missionaries. It would seem, however, that 
the Superiors of Chambery hoped, by delay, to keep with 
them so valuable a subject, and her letter of obedience was 
handed to her too late; she arrived in Lyons to find, to her 
intense disappointment, that the vessel on which she was 
to have sailed to her "land of promise" was far out at sea. 

Her family, when made aware of her resolve, exhausted 
every means in their power to retain her in France ; and 
her Superiors were obliged, in view of the difficulties 
raised by them, to leave to herself the decision of the pain- 
ful and delicate question. But He who had given her the 
strength and zeal of an apostle, enabled her to put flesh 
and blood out of the question, and seek, solely, the accom- 



Mother Celestine Pomperil. 28 



o 



plishment of that Divine Will, which, from her earliest 
years, she had made the touchstone of her actions. De- 
prived in this conjuncture of the infallible guide of obedi- 
ence, she, in fervent prayer and holy retirement, sought 
light from the Holy Spirit as to what was her duty to God 
and her Congregation. The guidance she implored was 
not denied her ; and convinced that her wish had been in- 
spired by Heaven, she, in April, 1837, accompanied by one 
fervent companion, left forever the shores of her native 
land, to follow her Sisters to what might then be fitly 
termed " the wilds of the West." We have spoken hereto- 
fore of the arrival of the two Sisters at St. Louis, and of 
their reception by the Bishop. It was not long before the 
Prelate recognized the sanctity, prudence, and talents of 
Sister Celestine, and, in 1839, she was appointed Superior 
of the Sisters of St. Joseph in St. Louis. This is no fit- 
ting place to enter into an extended account of Mother 
Celestine's religious life and laborious administration, the 
fruits of which the later generations of the Institute have 
been privileged to reap, and a worthy relation of which, Ave 
trust, her children of Carondelet may yet present to us. 

Belonging to that third class of the really great of whom 
Paschal says: i( They are those who by their wisdom, ardent 
piety, and true religion, subdue themselves, and teach 
others to submit to the yoke of Christ," she attracted to 
God all those with whom she came in contact, by that 
sweet charm of meekness to which God Himself has prom- 
ised empire. Tender as a mother even when firmest as a 
Superior, her words of counsel, admonition, and reproof 
were most potent for good, and it has been beautifully said 
that in their errors and delinquencies, her Sisters most fre- 
quently found their place of penance on the heart of their 
Mother. Thus ec all loving, loved by all, but loving best 
and best beloved of Christ," she spent the twenty years of 
her religious life in America; and having been tried in the 



284 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontboune. 

crucible of long and painful suffering, she, at last, was 
called to the nuptials of the Lamb on the 7th of June, 
1857, at the Mother House of Carondelet. " Our grief at 
her loss/'' write her Sisters, " it is impossible for you to im- 
agine or for us to describe. It is a terrible blow to the com- 
munities of St. Joseph. Her memory shall live eternally 
with us." 

That blessed memory has, in truth, been zealously kept 
alive, and the revered name of Mother Celestine is held by 
the Sisters, even those to whom personal knowledge of her 
has been denied, as synonymous with all that the title, " a 
perfect religious," conveys and implies. 

•I* *J* *r» *J* 

Mother St. John, the religious who, as above mentioned, 
accompanied Mother Celestine from France in 1837, and 
who was known in the world as Julia Alexia Fournier, 
was born at Arbois, France, November 11, 1814; and in 
the fourteenth year of her age, ere the world had claimed 
her heart or sullied the purity of her affections, she devoted 
herself to the Divine service in the religious state. Feeling 
within herself a supernatural attraction to the work of the 
missions in North America, — an attraction no doubt inten- 
sified by her study of the Annals of the Propagation of the 
Faith, which at that time aroused to enthusiasm the zeal of 
so many holy souls in France, — she consulted on the sub- 
ject Eev. Father Cholleton, Vicar-General of Lyons and 
Superior of the Sisters of St. Joseph, by whose advice she 
made known her wish to Rev. Mother St. John. Her sac- 
rifice was accepted; but while awaiting the time assigned 
for Mother Celestine's departure, she was sent with her to 
study at Saint-Etienne the deaf-mute language, as the 
Bishop of St. Louis contemplated opening a school or asy- 
lum for that class of the afflicted. 

After her arrival in St. Louis, Mother St. John was as- 
signed to different positions, both as teacher and Superior, 



Mother St. John Fournier. 285 

in all of which she labored earnestly and successfully under 
the influence of that zeal which was so potent a factor in 
her character. 

But the establishment of the Institute of St. Joseph in 
Philadelphia and adjacent dioceses seems to have been the 
great life-work allotted her by God, for the furtherance of 
which He endowed her with so many and such great gifts 
of nature and of grace. 

Having, by a special Providence, been restored to that 
diocese in 1853, she,, for twenty-two years, with a generos- 
ity that counted no sacrifice, an intensity of purpose that 
overcame almost insuperable obstacles, labored to organ- 
ize and definitely established those institutions of religion, 
charity, and Christian education which are, to-day, her im- 
perishable monument. " Her labors have not been without 
fruit, nor her works unprofitable/' because their impelling 
principal was that spirit of simple, earnest, God-seeking 
faith with which she was so wonderfully endowed, that, fre- 
quently, holy and distinguished ecclesiastics, after hearing 
her speak of the things of God, have been heard to exclaim, 
in the words of the Gospel: " woman, great is thy faith ! " 
Thence proceeded her intense, absorbing reverence for the 
Adorable Sacrament, " the grand and royal devotion of 
faith/' and for all that appertained to the Divine worship. 

Who that has heard her speak in the community con- 
ferences of the demeanor that a Spouse of Christ should 
maintain in presence of her Sacramental Lord, and has 
seen her words enforced by the eloquent preaching of her 
own example, can ever forget the lessons she taught, the 
impressions she produced? 

It was this devotion, also, that inspired her with such 
veneration for the sacerdotal character, that any slighting 
word of a minister of God, any expression regarding his 
faults or eccentricities, was looked upon by her as little less 
than a sacrilege. This characteristic, so noticeable under a 



286 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

variety of circumstances, throughout her life, was empha- 
sized particularly by her dying injunctions to the local 
Superiors of the Congregation. 

Another revelation of her faith was that supernatural 
loyalty to the Church which Faber notes as a necessary el- 
ement of sanctity, es]">ecially under times of persecution, 
such as at present. The sorrows and trials of the Pope, 
the " visible shadow of the Invisible Head of the Church 
in the Blessed Sacrament,'' weighed heavily on her heart ; 
and from the time of the occupation of Rome until her 
death, she never ceased urging her Sisters to prayer, pen- 
ance, and self-immolation for the deliverance of the Holv 
See. These sentiments she sought to perpetuate by es- 
tablishing in the Mother House the Midnight Hour of Ado- 
ration for this intention, an exercise which she never 
failed to conduct herself, unless prevented by sheer physi- 
cal inability. 

A soul so deeply imbued with a sense of the Divine Maj- 
esty could not but be an ardent lover of humility : indeed, 
that one word might well epitomize Mother St. John's 
spiritual temperament. In private direction as in pub- 
lic instruction, to professed Sisters as to novices, " in sea- 
son and out of season," the exhortation to humility was 
ever on her lips; and one of her most frequent sayings, ut- 
tered archly but with a depth of meaning, was that, " A 
Sister of St. Joseph should love to keep in her little cor- 
ner." 

Of lively and impetuous disposition and most energetic 
character, no heavier cross, one would suppose, could have 
been given her by God than the twelve years of forced in- 
action which preceded her death. Yet we doubt if ever 
even those most closely in companionship with her heard 
the slightest complaint, or perceived any trace of want of 
conformity with the Divine Will in this regard; and al- 
though the excruciating attacks to which she was fre- 



Mother St. John Fournier. 287 

quently subjected, drew from her, at times, some expression 
of suffering, it was always joined with the wish that God's 
holy will might be fully accomplished in her, in that as in 
all else. Solace in pain she found in prayer and labor ; 
and, incapacitated as she was by disease from the active ex- 
ternal duties of her vocation, she conceived the design of 
promoting the glory of God by the translation of works 
that should tend to make Him better known and served. 
The principal of these were Barthe's " Meditations on the 
Litany of the Blessed Virgin "; Martinet's " Ark of the 
People " ; " The Sign of the Cross "; " Daily Life of the 
Sick"; "Life of St. Benedict the Moor"; and "Madame 
de Lavalle's Bequest "; to which we may add several books 
for the amusement and instruction of the young. 

Strong, vigorous, prudent, and far-seeing as to all the de- 
tails of her government of the community, Mother St. John 
was what we may call "an old-fashioned religious "in 
her interpretation of the Bule, and her keen sense of the 
sublimity of the religious vocation and the obligations con- 
tracted by those who embraced it. Softness, effeminacy, 
half-hearted service of God found her a strict and, at times, 
a severe judge, but her reproofs were always rendered 
acceptable by the conviction that they proceeded from the 
purest motives. In her personal intercourse there was an 
irresistible charm; and her intimate knowledge of the char- 
acter, disposition, trials, and wants of her religious, en- 
abled her to reach what was best in them, even while, with 
unsparing hand, she tried to uproot what was defective. 
Seldom, if ever, has a Superior been more tenderly loved, 
more deeply venerated ; her slightest word was law, and 
even though the silence of death has fallen on her, it has 
not stilled the voice whose words and counsels, treasured 
in faithful, filial hearts, are blessed, potent traditions to 
the rising generations. 

She had, indeed, " fought the good fight ; " it was time 



288 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

she should return to Him who had sent her to do His work; 
there was "laid up for her the crown of justice," with 
which our Lord delights to adorn the faithful soul. On 
the 15th of October, 1875, the anniversary of the founda- 
tion of St. Joseph's Institute, Mother St. John entered into 
her eternal rest, after having, by her sublime patience 
during her illness, her loving thoughtf ulness for the future 
of those whom she promised to bear in her heart to 
Heaven, and her never-to-be-forgotten dying instructions 
to her community, fitly consummated her life of edifica- 
tion. 

"How Saints have lived that blessed life had taught us; 

"Woe for the days gone by ! 
The sacred seal upon her life-work setting, 

She taught us how they die." 

Many and beautiful were the tributes rendered to her 
memory by prelates and distinguished ecclesiastics, by re- 
ligious and laymen ; but the memento made of her by the 
Holy Father Pius IX., to whom in life she had been so 
devoted, was to her Sisters a consolation precious beyond 
all price. 

Her love for the Sacrament of the Altar had led her to 
spend much of the time of her illness in making lace for 
the use of the sanctuary, and she had earnestly cherished 
the hope of being allowed to present to the Holy Father a 
rochet made by herself and her Sisters. The visit to the 
Eternal City of a highly valued friend, whose influence 
there rendered the desired presentation practicable, en- 
abled her to realize the wish of her heart. Her death, 
however, happening in the meantime, the kind bearer of 
the offering touchingly alluded to the fact in the beautiful 
letter of presentation. When his Holiness had read that 
part of the document he raised his eyes to Heaven, and 
murmured a fervent Requiescat in pace. Then taking his 



The Other American Foundresses, 289 

pen, he deigned to append to the Letter of Presentation the 
following words of consolation to her bereaved children: — 

" 23d of November, 1875. 

" May God bless you and your good works, and may He 
grant peace to her that has departed. 

" Pope Pius IX." 

It is unnecessary to add that this doubly precious docu- 
ment is religiously preserved in the archives of the Con- 
gregation of Philadelphia, to be handed down to future 
generations of its religious as a proof that our Lord 
recompensed, even in time, the devotion of this true 

daughter of the Church. 

* * * * 

Mother St, John Fournier had been preceded in death by 
another of the American Foundresses, concerning whom 
we find the following notice in the Necrology of the 
Congregation, published at Lyons in 1861 : 

" Sister St. Philomene, nhe Devilaine, aged fifty-one 
years, professed twenty-four years, died in our Community 
of Carondelet, America, on the 11th of November, 1861. 

" This holy religious was one of the six Sisters who left 
us, in 1835, to devote themselves in far-distant lands to the 
promotion of God's glory, exercising their religious zeal 
at the cost of all they held dearest in the world. Alas ! 
in that laborious and painful mission, what privations had 
to be endured, what trials undergone ! . . . . These, 
however, our beloved Sister accepted for the love of 
Jesus Christ. Firm as a rock amidst the raging billows, 
she was ever calm, tranquil, nay, even joyous in the midst 
of tribulation. She put all her trust in our Lord, and 
renewed her strength by the accomplishment of those 
religious virtues, of which she gave us such a brilliant 
example even to the last moment of her life." 

Mother M. Felicite Boute, whose first religions name 
of Sister Marguerite had been changed as heretofore noted, 



290 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

in compliment to the Countess de la Rochejacquelin, died 
also at the Mother House of Carondelet, September 23, 
1881, at the age of seventy. 

Her " old age was, in truth, a crown of dignity," because 
" it was found in the ways of justice." The sacrifice 
of health, talents, strength, and life, which in early years 
she had made to God, was not revoked when the weak- 
ness of exhaustion and the infirmities of later years came 
upon her. Eager to lay up treasures in Heaven before the 
coming of that ' ' night wherein no man can work," she 
diligently employed herself in such labor as she was capable 
of when dispensed from the onerous duties of superiorship, 
keeping her heart meanwhile centered in God, walking 
daily in His holy presence. Humbling herself as a little 
child, she merited to sink to her eternal rest lovingly 
cradled in the arms of her Heavenly Father ; and her 
soul, we confidently trust, was borne to Heaven by the 
angels of the countless little ones whom she had received, 
loved, and cared for with a supernatural maternal affec- 
tion. 

But one of the dear missionary Sisters of 1836 has been 
spared to witness the fiftieth year of her American apos- 
tolate, and to behold the fruitful harvest given by God in 
recompense of the laborious planting and tillage of earlier 
years. Yet Sister St. Protais, forgetful, like the great 
Apostle, " of the things that are behind and stretching 
forth to those that are before," continues, even at the pres- 
ent day, to work at the Indian mission of Baraga, Mich., 
for the love of that Divine Master from whose sweet lips 
she will, assuredly, one day hear the glorious commenda- 
tion : " Well done, good and faithful servant ; enter into 
the joy of thy Lord." 

Ah, how eloquent, continues the Abbe Rivaux (whose 
narration we have interrupted to give a more extended 
notice of the American foundresses than he was able to 



Blessed Memories of the Departed. 291 

obtain), how eloquent is the voice that issues from those 
far-distant tombs, inviting the whole Congregation of St. 
Joseph to venerate and imitate Rev. Mother St. John ! 
The Sisters of America, worthy daughters of the Mothers 
she gave them, have often asked that her life might be 
written. We now offer it to them, as well as to their Sisters 
in the Old World, in all its simplicity. Fuller in details, 
more interesting in style it might have been, but such as 
it is, they will value it as a monument to one whom they 
would fain have held "in everlasting remembrance." 
The lives of religious have, for the members of their Order, 
an interest out of all proportion to their literary value. 
It is this salutary interest and reverence which Mother 
M. Alphonse de Ligouri, one of the Superiors General of 
the Congregation of Lyons, has recommended to her spirit- 
ual children in the following pious and touching words : 

"Believe me that since I have become wholly yours, I have 
had only one desire, viz., that the Rev. Mother, Mothers 
Counsellors, Mother Superiors or Daughters of our Congre- 
gations should,by the most tender unanimity, form that 
beautiful fraternal crown of which the Holy Scripture 
speaks. Shall we not give this joy, my beloved children, to 
our ever- to-be-regretted Rev. Mothers ? Let us not forget 
that we have all been formed and trained under the benefi- 
cent influence of their love. Oh ! blessed forever shall be 
the precious and fruitful years of the government of our 
Rev. Mother Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the gentle and ma- 
ternal administration of our beloved Rev. Mother Marie- 
Louise ! God alone knows how ardent is my desire to profit 
by their lessons and example, forgetting not, in the mean- 
while, her whose name must be forever blessed, our worthy 
Rev. Mother St. John. What perfect models our glorious 
Patriarch has successively chosen to set before his children 
the way of religious virtues ! What a spirit of practical 
faith ! What wisdom in their communications! What 



2 9 2 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

abnegation of self ! my beloved daughters, what beauti- 
tiful actions we could admire together, did the limits of 
our Circular admit of our giving free vent to our memories 
and our sentiments ! But to Him who crowns them this 
day we confide the effusions of our gratitude ; it is He, 
also, whom you will implore to grant me the grace of re- 
producing some of their characteristics, of renewing some 
of their glorious virtues." 

On the receipt of this circular the Superior of the Sisters 
of St. Joseph of Philadelphia wrote to Mother Alphonse a 
letter of filial congratulation and holy delight. ' ' Our 
hearts," she writes, " rejoice with yours at the remem- 
brance which you so touchingly recall of those three in- 
comparable Rev. Mothers, Mother St. John, Mother 
Sacred Heart of Jesus, and Mother Marie-Louise. Their 
saintly example, their great faith and rare virtues have es- 
tablished, edified, and embalmed the whole Congregation 
of St. Joseph. Although so widely separated from you, 
be assured the heart of each of our Sisters throbs in unison 
with yours at the names of those holy Mothers. We have 
been their children, we shall be yours. Our hearts exult 
with joy at the thought that one day, in our heavenly 
country, we shall all meet together with our blessed and 
venerated Mothers." 

"The Church," says Mgr. Plantier, "living by the 
traditions preserved within her own bosom, loves to see re- 
ligious congregations living and acting according to their 
traditional spirits ; and — while not rejecting salutary inno- 
vations — making as far as possible, both as regards persons 
and things, the present but a prolongation of the past." 

Frederic Ozanam, the Vincent de Paul of laymen, has 
said : " The benediction of the Lord is upon those houses 
that remember their ancestors. It is under the shadow of 
those whom the grace of God and their own merits make so 
much greater than we, that we must shelter ourselves. 



The Combat of Religious. 293 

The beneficent shadow cast upon us by the story of 
their lives and our own meditations on their works will 
strengthen and vivify those virtues that should be born 
within us. Thus it is that, from this nest, formed, so to 
say, from the relics of their life, shall fly forth a glorious 
brood of souls worthy of their ancestors/' 

We leave to the pious Congregation of St. Joseph these 
eloquent invitations and recommendations regarding the 
remembrance of their early Mothers, virgins of exquisite 
moral beauty, whose immaculate and august prototype 
was the Virgin Mother of God. Virgins and Mothers them- 
selves, they, conjointly with their religious family, have 
honored, rejoiced, enlarged, and adorned the Church. 
By their religious method of instruction and education, by 
their exercise of evangelical charity and the edification of 
their lives, the Sisters of St. Joseph are destined to take 
a great and glorious part in the struggle of good against 
evil, of truth against error and falsehood. 

In this conflict they, after the example of their foun- 
dresses, teach and contend, according to the expression of 
the Imitation, " without noise of words, without confusion 
of opinions, without ambition of honor, without contention 
of arguments," l rather after the manner of the stars. For 
the Scripture says, the stars have combated : stellce dimi- 
caverunt, which they do, however, only by shining, scintil- 
lating, enlightening, and thus sweetly overcoming the 
shadows of darkness. The Congregation of St. Joseph 
is a beautiful constellation in the starry firmament of the 
Church, diffusing its light amidst the darkness of pagan 
lands, and shedding on thousands of souls those beneficent 
rays which dissipate the clouds of error. God alone 
knows, for He alone could number, the multitude of souls 
whom it has formed to virtue and elevated to eternal happi- 

1 Bfe. III., 43. 



294 Life of Rev. Mother St. John Fontbonne. 

ness and the intuitive vision, since, restoredby the venerable 
Mother St. John it has taken its place beside its illustrious 
and admirable sisters, the various religious Congregations. 
May those blessed luminaries, conjointly, by the sweet 
brilliancy of their faith, hope, charity, and religious per- 
fection, wage, successfully, their peaceful war against the 
powers of darkness, which, in our day especially, have been 
able to impregnate the minds even of many well-inten- 
tioned persons with the poisonous miasma of secular edu- 
cation, that satanic device for robbing the soul of the helps 
of religion, the knowledge of God. The combat is unequal 
as regards material resources, but that only renders it 
more imperative on religious to bring all the strength of 
their zeal and devotedness to the task of their own intel- 
lectual development, the elevation and perfection of their 
system of instruction, and the devising of effectual means 
for drawing to our Catholic schools and retaining therein, the 
children for whose benefit they have been organized. There 
is no means so potent as this for withdrawing the young 
from impiety at present, and for raising up, in the future, 
strong generations, who shall derive their being from parents 
firmly grounded in the love and practice of their holy re- 
ligion. Society can be purified and elevated only by the 
purification and elevation of individual minds and charac- 
ters, which, in turn, will react on families and communi- 
ties. How grand, then, the work of re-edification to 
which the religious-teaching bodies are called, since, by 
the influence of religion alone, can this blessed end be 
reached! But how ardent, also, must be the faith and 
confidence that will animate those God -chosen instru- 
ments, how deep and solid that spirit of sanctity which will 
render them the living embodiment of the lessons of vir- 
tue they daily inculcate! Of such it shall be said in the 
words of Holy Writ : the stars have combated, and they 
have vanquished, dimicaverunt stellcB ct vicerunt. 



The Good Operated by Religious. 295 

The religious orders, whose direct end is to make Saints, 
shall then be seen to have saved the world, not by remem- 
bering the attacks directed against God and themselves, 
but by having expiated them by prayers and tears, by gen- 
erous forgiveness, by the merits of their sacrifices, and the 
heroism of their devotion. 




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